BIOLAND-Cy links satellite Earth Observation with already-published bioarchaeological evidence — human remains, isotopes, animal bones, plants — to reconstruct how people lived in the ancient Cypriot landscape. No new excavation. No new sampling. Open science from open evidence.
Sentinel-2 NDVI, Copernicus terrain, hydrology and Sentinel-1 SAR build an environmental baseline for each ancient site — without a single new excavation.
~120 human, 150 faunal and 50 botanical published records are harmonised into one spatial framework — open science from open evidence.
A QGIS-based decision-support platform with five thematic map groups, FAIR datasets, and a public download portal at project end.
From environmental baselines to integrated indices to a public geospatial platform — see how the project is organised and download public deliverables.
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BIOLAND-Cy develops, for the first time in Cyprus, an interdisciplinary framework that links Earth Observation (EO) and Remote Sensing with already-published bioarchaeological evidence — human osteology, stable isotopes, zooarchaeology and archaeobotany. The project does no new excavation and takes no new samples. Instead it digitally re-evaluates the published record against satellite-derived environmental baselines to ask how people lived in, fed from, and moved through the ancient landscape.
For each studied site, BIOLAND-Cy builds an environmental baseline from open satellite data — vegetation (NDVI), terrain, hydrology, and radar (SAR) — and brings it into the same spatial frame as the published bioarchaeological evidence for that site. From this integration it produces three core outputs: a Resource Accessibility Index (RAI) that describes where subsistence resources were reachable, an Activity Index that models how the surrounding landscape was used and traversed, and the BIOLAND GeoHub — a QGIS-based platform with five thematic map groups that makes all of this openly available to researchers and heritage managers.
The work runs over 24 months across five Work Packages, and everything is built to open-science standards: datasets are released CC-BY 4.0 via Zenodo, code is released under MIT, and publications follow Plan S. Because the project works only from published and openly available data, its results are fully reproducible and free of new fieldwork.
Bioarchaeological datasets in Cyprus — isotopes, faunal remains, skeletal indicators — have rarely been placed in a shared environmental and spatial context, and no prior study has systematically combined them with EO-derived landscape baselines. BIOLAND-Cy bridges that gap. In doing so it strengthens the Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence's capacity in EO for cultural heritage and contributes to Cyprus' Smart Specialisation priority 6.1.5 (satellite EO and Remote Sensing for archaeological monuments and cultural heritage), while supporting UN SDG 11.4 on safeguarding cultural heritage.
Build EO baselines (NDVI, terrain, hydrology) for ancient Cypriot landscapes at 10–25 m resolution.
Create an RAI linking environment to diet, validated with ≥120 published isotopic datapoints.
Harmonise published human, faunal and botanical data into one open spatial framework.
Model movement and land use from terrain and Sentinel-1 SAR coherence.
Deliver a QGIS platform with five thematic map groups and FAIR documentation.
Publish FAIR datasets, open code, and peer-reviewed papers — fully reproducible.
Bioarchaeologist specialising in diet reconstruction, mobility and skeletal stress across the Eastern Mediterranean; project lead across all five work packages.
Geophysics, GIS and UAV survey; supports the Earth-Observation processing and spatial-analysis tasks in WP3–WP5.
Architect; spatial documentation, data organisation and visual content across the project's work packages.
BIOLAND-Cy is funded by the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF) under the EXCELLENCE HUBS programme of RESTART 2016–2020 (proposal EXCELLENCE/0925/0163), co-funded by the Republic of Cyprus and the European Union. Sole implementer: the Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence, Limassol.
Three scientific work packages move from environmental baselines, to integrated indices, to a public geospatial platform.
EO environmental baselines (NDVI, terrain, hydrology) are combined with harmonised isotopic and bioarchaeological data to build a Resource Accessibility Index validated against ≥120 human isotopic datapoints.
Terrain and Sentinel-1 SAR coherence drive cost-surface mobility models and an Activity Index describing how landscapes around each site were used and moved through.
All datasets are harmonised into a FAIR geodatabase and surfaced through the BIOLAND GeoHub — a QGIS platform with five thematic map groups and full documentation.
Sites were ranked by an evidence-based BIOLAND-fit score = (2 × human bioarchaeology) + zooarchaeology + archaeobotany + strontium baseline, drawing on published references and open databases, Republic of Cyprus only.
| Rank | Tier 1 site | Period | Evidence coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Khirokitia / Choirokoitia | Aceramic Neolithic (UNESCO WHS) | 3 / 4 |
| 2 | Hala Sultan Tekke | Late Bronze Age | 4 / 4 — flagship |
| 3 | Souskiou complex | Chalcolithic | 1 / 4 |
| 4 | Nea Paphos / Kato Paphos | Hellenistic → Byzantine | 2 / 4 |
| 5 | Amathus | Cypro-Geometric → Late Antique | 3 / 4 |
| 6 | Kissonerga + Lemba-Lakkous | Chalcolithic + LPPNB | 3 / 4 |
Six Tier 1 sites anchor the study, ranked by published bioarchaeological evidence — each receives full multi-season Earth-Observation coverage. Photographs will replace the colour fields as fieldwork-free imagery is curated.
The project draws on NDVI and multi-season optical imagery, Sentinel-1 SAR coherence, digital elevation models, stable-isotope analysis, and machine-learning approaches — with an explicit strategy for bridging modern satellite imagery and ancient evidence through multi-year stacks and long-term Landsat baselines.
BIOLAND-Cy is structured into five Work Packages spanning project management, communication, and three scientific strands. Together they produce 19 deliverables — datasets, indices, the GeoHub platform, and reports. Public deliverables can be downloaded below as they are released.
Deliverables marked public are listed here with their PDF or DOI. They appear automatically once released through the editor.
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M1–M24 · Governance, reporting, risk management and the Data Management Plan.
M1–M24 · Visual identity, website, outreach, publications and exploitation.
M2–M16 · Environmental baselines, integrated bioarchaeology and the Resource Accessibility Index.
M10–M20 · Terrain and SAR-driven mobility and activity modelling.
M16–M24 · Harmonised geodatabase and the public QGIS GeoHub.
Live status of all deliverables. Public items link to their PDF or DOI.
| ID | Deliverable | WP | Due | Status | Download |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Five FAIR-compliant geospatial datasets, published openly under CC-BY 4.0 via the bioland-cy Zenodo community as they are released.
Reproducible processing pipelines released under the MIT licence at eratosthenes-coe/bioland-cy from project end.
Method explainers, milestone announcements and event reports. At least one post every two months. Click any post to read the full article.
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Quarterly updates on progress, datasets and events. Double opt-in; unsubscribe anytime.
Upcoming and past project events and workshops. Workshops open as full articles with photos and materials; event materials are archived after each.
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Dr Mahmoud Mardini
Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence
Limassol, Cyprus
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