This contribution analyses and discusses the use of 3D technology in education and learning. Basing the discussion on a case study performed during two seasons of a field school for 1st-year archaeology students, we explore how to expand traditional didactic programs by developing and testing a web-based system for educational purposes. We examine how these technologies can be used as educational means and supporting tools during an excavation; how universities can incorporate these technologies into pedagogy. We investigate whether the combination of these technologies with a successful pedagogical theory could promote students’ comprehension of the reflexive approach and engagement with the interpretative process. We introduced the students to a complete excavation methodology, including excavation, documentation, data management, and interpretation. Alongside the traditional documentation, a digital approach was added, with 3D technologies and an Interactive Visualisation System that allows fully three-dimensional reasoning from the beginning and throughout the whole archaeological process. Preliminary results show that students easily incorporate 3D documentation into their toolbox for analysing and visualising the material and understand both the possibilities and limitations of the system. However, we identified some limitations in the students’ use of the system. Together with the students’ feedback, we will use them to develop it further and discuss its use in education.

The management of archaeological excavation data has been the subject of scientific debate in the last decades: critical elements have been identified, such as maintaining analytical data and the derived knowledge entangled, and other relevant aspects, like data curation, accessibility, and long-term preservation, have emerged. This study describes, illustrates, and evaluates the use of the Archaeological Interactive Report (AIR), a cutting-edge information system designed to manage excavation data that is oriented toward the 3D web semantics. AIR is a web platform for recording archaeological investigations live, an online archive that incorporates the complete dataset of the investigations, and a multimedia visualization system providing a 3D environment for data analysis and assemblages, testing interpretation hypotheses, and publishing dynamic editorialization outputs. AIR is applied and evaluated within the case study of Västra Vång (southeastern Sweden), demonstrating that it is possible to use a flexible ontological data model tailored to the archaeologists’ needs.

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