There are a lot of mathematical relationships that crop up over and over in the universe. We see the same golden ratio occurring in the structures of romanesco broccoli and grand spiral galaxies. Bell curves can describe the heights of humans and the variance of stars about some average value. Over and over, patterns exist everywhere.

But some patterns are utterly unexpected.

The same statistical method of clustering points that is used to identify clusters of galaxies can also be used to find clusters of tombs in the desert. That is math I never expected.

High-resolution satellite imagery has revealed myriad structures in the desert of eastern Sudan that appear to be ancient tombs. Ph.D. student Stefano Costanzo was working to map and understand these hard-to-reach funerary structures, which are located outside the city of Kassala (and by outside Kassala, I mean Costanzo would drive down the single road that led toward ruins, and then go another 5 hours off-road to get there).

In looking at the distribution of structures, Costanzo noted that they appeared to cluster, but the clusters didn’t seem to be purely related to differences in terrain that might have made one place easier to build in than another.

Collaborator Filippo Brandolini explored different statistical methods for understanding clustering in data and found that the Neyman-Scott cluster process, which was designed for galaxy clusters, worked to describe what they were seeing. According to Costanzo, “…a sort of gravitational attraction, which is actually socio-cultural”, is pulling these structures together.

This study shows that we really can’t know how the results of our research may help define other fields of study. Wi-Fi was developed by astronomers trying to improve radio astronomy, and data compression techniques have been created to help spacecraft get their signals home. In writing our grants to the National Science Foundation, researchers like me have to explain how our research will benefit society, and the thing that always gets me is the greatest benefits are rarely the ones we expect.

More Information

Cosmological Tool Helps Archaeologists Map Earthly Tomb (Eos)

“Creating the funerary landscape of Eastern Sudan,” Stefano Costanzo et al., 2021 July 7, PLOS One