From Spadework to Screenwork: new forms of archaeological discovery in digital space (original) (raw)
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Digital Technologies and the Transformation of Archaeological Labor
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The Apparatus of Digital Archaeology
Internet Archaeology, 2017
Digital Archaeology is predicated upon an ever-changing set of apparatuses – technological, methodological, software, hardware, material, immaterial – which in their own ways and to varying degrees shape the nature of Digital Archaeology. Our attention, however, is perhaps inevitably more closely focussed on research questions, choice of data, and the kinds of analyses and outputs. In the process we tend to overlook the effects the tools themselves have on the archaeology we do beyond the immediate consequences of the digital. This paper introduces cognitive artefacts as a means of addressing the apparatus more directly within the context of the developing archaeological digital ecosystem. It argues that a critical appreciation of our computational cognitive artefacts is key to understanding their effects on both our own cognition and on the creation of archaeological knowledge. In the process, it defines a form of cognitive digital archaeology in terms of four distinct methods for extracting cognition from the digital apparatus layer by layer.
Annual Review of Anthropology, 2022
Digital archaeology is both a pervasive practice and a unique subdiscipline within archaeology. The diverse digital methods and tools employed by archaeologists have led to a proliferation of innovative practice that has fundamentally reconfigured the discipline. Rather than reviewing specific technologies, this review situates digital archaeology within broader theoretical debates regarding Craft and Embodiment, Materiality, The Uncanny, and Ethics, Politics, and Accessibility. A future digital archaeology must move beyond skeuomorphic submission and replication of previous structural inequalities to foment new archaeological imaginaries.
Digital Archaeology: Bridging Method and Theory
Digital Archaeology is a unique edited work addressing the changing and growing role of digital technologies in all aspects of archaeology and heritage management. Exploring the wide potential of IT across the discipline, this book goes beyond the prevailing notion that computers are merely a methodological tool, and considers their influence on the very nature of archaeological study.
New perspectives on Digital Archaeology: From production to usability of data
Periferias: desde los márgenes de la arqueología, 2023
The study of the material past through current digital methods and tools is not only highlighting the challenges of handling them correctly, but also how this context is influencing research in Archaeology, and especially the data produced within this discipline. In this paper, we introduce this topic discussing various issues, such as the information digitisation, the relevance of free and open-source software, the responsibility of data opening, and the perception of data for knowledge acquisition.
After Virtual Archaeology: rethinking archaeological approaches to the adoption of technology
DRAFT WIP: After Virtual Archaeology: rethinking archaeological approaches to the adoption of technology GARETH BEALE1 AND PAUL REILLY2 1 Centre for Digital Heritage, University of York gareth.beale@york.ac.uk 2 Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Southampton p.reilly@soton.ac.uk tel: +44(0)1794341961 Abstract In the 1980s archaeologists embraced the rapidly expanding field of computer modelling and visualisation as a vehicle for data exploration. Against this backdrop ‘virtual archaeology’ was conceived. The term was originally intended to describe a multi-dimensional approach to the modelling of the physical structures and processes of field archaeology. It described the way in which technology could be harnessed in order to achieve new ways of documenting, interpreting and annotating primary archaeological materials and processes. Despite their initial promise, these technologies failed to have the impact upon archaeological fieldwork which might have been expected. Even with the prevalence of digital devices on all archaeological excavations the documentation, interpretation and subsequent narration of archaeological processes have retained their analogue character. While the archaeological record is now primarily digital, its sections, plans, drawings and photographs are facsimiles of the analogue technologies which preceded them. This retention of analogue conventions is increasingly out of step with the general prevalence of digital technologies as mediators of professional and private life. It is also challenged by 21st century advances towards technologies which allow for complex engagements with and representations of physical matter and facilitate the interplay between digital and material worlds. Focusing on just two potentially disruptive technology areas, namely computational photography and additive manufacturing, this paper argues that developments in the capabilities and ubiquity of digital devices coupled with rapid increases in digital literacy among archaeologists, has the capacity to revolutionise the investigation, documentation, interpretation, and narration of the archaeological process. Keywords: 3D printing, additive manufacturing, computational photography, digital imaging, virtual archaeology, technology introduction, scenario planning
A Manifesto for an Introspective Digital Archaeology
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Critical Archaeology in the Digital Age
2022
Every part of archaeological practice is intimately tied to digital technologies, but how deeply do we really understand the ways these technologies impact the theoretical trends in archaeology, how these trends affect the adoption of these technologies, or how the use of technology alters our interactions with the human past? This volume suggests a critical approach to archaeology in a digital world, a purposeful and systematic application of digital tools in archaeology. This is a call to pay attention to your digital tools, to be explicit about how you are using them, and to understand how they work and impact your own practice. The chapters in this volume demonstrate how this critical, reflexive approach to archaeology in the digital age can be accomplished, touching on topics that include 3D data, predictive and procedural modelling, digital publishing, digital archiving, public and community engagement, ethics, and global sustainability. The scale and scope of this research demonstrates how necessary it is for all archaeological practitioners to approach this digital age with a critical perspective and to be purposeful in our use of digital technologies.
DIGITAL TOOLS -A NEW ERA IN ARCHAEOLOGY
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The use of digital technology and digital tools in the research, preservation, and presentation of archaeological heritage is crucial these days. In order to manage resources efficiently, good planning and strategy are necessary. Additionally, in order to plan well, it is necessary to collect, classify, process, and store data. Archaeology, as a science, requires meticulous work on data collection, processing, storage, interpretation, and presentation. A question that is increasingly becoming the focus of all interested parties is the relationship between archaeology and other sciences in terms of exchanging data. The relationship between field archaeology, scientific research, economy, economic development, and spatial and urban planning is mentioned in many works. The main aim of this paper is to promote the need to unify the archaeological documentation used by all interested parties in archaeology, culture, and spatial planning in Serbia and to connect all participants in this process through an information system. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between archaeology, GIS, and spatial planning. An exceptional example of the use of digital tools in archaeology is a map of archaeological sites, which can play a vital role in the coordination of activities in this field.
Introduction: archaeological theory and digital pasts
We live in a digital age; a world where computers are omni-present, but in which we are only just beginning to understand how to productively apply them to our lives. In a very short period computers have come from being great number crunching machines to being 'neat' and 'nifty' gadgets, from being almost inaccessible to being everyday devices that we have come to rely upon-perhaps too much. Yet, despite the presence of computers in our offices, homes, cars, planes and, in fact almost every device in the modern world, we do not always know how to utilize them to their best advantage. This is certainly the case in the study of archaeology. To this end one can say that digital archaeology is not so much a specialism, nor a theoretical school, but an approach-a way of better utilizing computers based on an understanding of the strengths and limits of computers and information technology as a whole. This volume presents an overview of some of the more useful and innovative applications of computers to our understanding of the archaeological past. It shows good examples of how technology is being integrated into our approaches to theory, practice and indeed demonstrates how they are assisting in the marriage between the two.