Excavation is Destruction Digitization: Advances in Archaeological Practice

Abstract

This article modifies an old archaeological adage-''excavation is destruction''-to demonstrate how advances in archaeological practice suggest a new iteration: ''excavation is digitization.'' Digitization, in a fully digital paradigm, refers to practices that leverage advances in onsite, image-based modeling and volumetric recording, integrated databases, and data sharing. Such practices were implemented in 2014 during the inaugural season of the Kaymakç ı Archaeological Project (KAP) in western Turkey. The KAP recording system, developed from inception before excavation as a digital workflow, increases accuracy and efficiency as well as simplicity and consistency. The system also encourages both practical and conceptual advances in archaeological practice. These involve benefits associated with thinking volumetrically, rather than in two dimensions, and a connectivity that allows for group decision-making regardless of group location. Additionally, it is hoped that the system's use of almost entirely ''off-the-shelf'' solutions will encourage its adoption or at least its imitation by other projects.

NEARCHOS. Networked Archaeological Open Science: Advances in Archaeology Through Field Analytics and Scientific Community Sharing

“…Data recording and elaboration techniques have been updated exponentially in the last decade, mainly thanks to increasingly affordable and diffused digital and 3D technologies (Giligny et al 2015;Roosevelt et al 2015). In addition, the sophisticated application of methods from informatics and natural sciences has become crucial for building reliable models of past economic phenomena, to infer the places of origin of raw materials, reconstruct ancient technologies, and date sites and artifacts (Killick 2015, p. 242;Smith et al 2012, p. 7617).…”

“…An excavation is a destructive as well as a unique operation, and the interpretation of the excavator, albeit a necessary task, is not the only one possible. A fresh analysis should be carried out on the basis of all recorded data (Roosevelt et al 2015), but in fact an excavation report is almost never an integral one. This hampers the quality of the reevaluation of a unique piece of information, the archaeological context, which is a quintessential epistemological operation since research goals and techniques are always changing.…”

Digital Archeology Is Here (and Has Been for a While)

“…I echo (Morgan and Eve, 2012; p. 523) the statement that "we are all digital archaeologists. " This statement wants to be radical but is in fact a mundane recognition of a state of normality that has existed for at least 20 years and has described a significant segment of the archeological community for at least 40 years.Evidence of the reality of digital archeology is all around us in the discipline's data collection and curation (Roosevelt et al, 2015), analysis [mainly through GIS, see Conolly and Lake (2006) (2006) and work that builds on it]. Perhaps, the best evidence is the growing prominence of archeology blogs in driving the dissemination and interpretation of results (see Colleen Morgan's middlesavagery or John Hawks' weblog for notable examples in very different regions of the discipline).…”

“…Evidence of the reality of digital archeology is all around us in the discipline's data collection and curation (Roosevelt et al, 2015), analysis [mainly through GIS, see Conolly and Lake (2006) (2006) and work that builds on it]. Perhaps, the best evidence is the growing prominence of archeology blogs in driving the dissemination and interpretation of results (see Colleen Morgan's middlesavagery or John Hawks' weblog for notable examples in very different regions of the discipline).…”

“…Evidence of the reality of digital archeology is all around us in the discipline's data collection and curation (Roosevelt et al, 2015), analysis [mainly through GIS, see Conolly and Lake (2006)], visualization [work in and elaborating on Stanco et al (2011), among others], public outreach and participation (Richardson, 2013), and training methods. The reflection on what it means to be a digital archeologist is ongoing [Evans and Daly (2006) and work that builds on it].…”