Lingnan co-develops world's first large-scale AI archaeological system for ancient Chinese plant seeds

Ancient plant seeds provide important archaeological evidence for studying the evolution of human civilisation. Lingnan University and Shandong University have jointly developed the world’s first AI archaeological system dedicated to identifying ancient Chinese plant seeds. The system emulates the identification process of archaeobotanical experts and achieves a classification accuracy of over 90 per cent. The researchers point out that the identification of plant seeds excavated from archaeological sites has traditionally relied on experts examining each seed individually, a process that is both time consuming and difficult for large-scale analysis. Building a large, standardised database helps improve research efficiency while advancing archaeobotanical research and the digitalisation of cultural heritage. The findings have been published in Heritage Science, an internationally recognised journal of cultural heritage and part of the Nature Portfolio.

Prof Sam Kwong Tak-wu, Associate Vice-President (Strategic Research), J.K. Lee Chair Professor of Computational Intelligence and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Lingnan, said that it usually takes several years to train an archaeobotanical expert to identify ancient plant seeds independently, however specialists still need to spend considerable time examining and comparing seeds one by one under a microscope before reaching a conclusion, so that the process is highly labour-intensive. He noted that developing an automated identification system has long been an important research direction in archaeobotany, and the AI archaeological system developed by the research team integrates AI, archaeology, and cultural heritage conservation, addressing a key challenge.

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