People > Gayoung Park
Gayoung Park
Archaeology PhD student
Gayoung received a BS in Archaeology from Pusan National University (Korea) in 2010 and an MA in Archaeology at the same university in 2012. She received a second MA in Archaeology from UW in 2017. She has participated in various field projects spanning the Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze age in Korea as well as participating in the LEIA Project in Spain during 2017. She also worked at Gimhae National Museum in Korea analyzing lithics and writing excavation report of the Bibong-ri site from 2011 to 2012.
Her current research is about understanding technological innovation during the Late Pleistocene in Korea. She uses cultural evolutionary theory as a framework to understand technological change within social and ecological contexts.
On digital technologies in archaeology...
Digital technologies enable me to use lithic artifacts as a great source to understand human behavior in prehistory. For example, with 3D modeling technology, I can measure the degree of curvation or cortex ratio in scrapers which are not possible with traditional lithic analysis methods. In addition, the 3D modeling helps save time and money because once I make a 3D model for an artifact, I can revisit it anytime that I need. I am using museum collections in Korea for my dissertation research and I use 3D modeling technology so that I don't have to cross the Pacific every time that I wish to revisit the collection.
