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.
The interdisciplinary field known as digital humanities (DH) is represented in various forms in the teaching and research practiced in iSchools. Building on the work of an iSchools organization committee charged with exploring digital humanities curricula, we present findings from a series of related studies exploring aspects of DH teaching, education, and research in iSchools, often in collaboration with other units and disciplines. Through a survey of iSchool programs and an online DH course registry, we investigate the various education models for DH training found in iSchools, followed by a detailed look at DH courses and curricula, explored through analysis of course syllabi and course descriptions. We take a brief look at collaborative disciplines with which iSchools cooperate on DH research projects or in offering DH education. Next, we explore DH careers through an analysis of relevant job advertisements. Finally, we offer some observations about the management and administrative challenges and opportunities
Diachronic survey in the Marmara Lake basin of western Turkey confirms long-term settlement activity from the 5th millennium B.C. to the present. Here we present the results from a study of ceramics and settlement distribution pertaining to the Chalcolithic through the Iron Age periods (ca. 5th/4th-1st millennium B.C.). Our dataset confirms the value of a multi-pronged approach when establishing ceramic typologies from survey datasets, incorporating distribution in the landscape with macroscopic, microscopic (petrographic), and chemical (Instrumental Neutron Activation) analyses. Our results offer valuable insights into continuity as well as change of ceramic recipes in western Anatolia during the rise of urbanism in the Middle to Late Bronze Age followed by the establishment of an imperial realm in the Iron Age. From a methodological perspective, our results illustrate the value of macroscopic and chemical approaches, including principal component, distribution, density, and discriminant analyses that can be refined further by petrography, for the interpretation of surface survey ceramics.
The methodical recording and representation of spatial data are central to archaeological fieldwork and research. Until recently, centimeter-level precise geolocation equipment was the exclusive domain of researchers who could afford setups costing tens of thousands of dollars. However, high-quality measurements are being made more accessible by rapidly evolving technologies. These new tools, when used together with mobile technology for efficiently recording field data, open up the possibility of capturing the precise location of every find during an archaeological surface survey. An important step in reaching the desired outcome—centimeter-level recording for all—is experimentation with a variety of emerging low-cost setups. Accordingly, we tested the Reach and Reach RS, differential global navigation satellite systems (dGNSS) equipment produced by the company Emlid, during a surface survey in Armenia in June 2018. Our field application demonstrates that the use of dGNSS is already possible and that the described advances in precision enable improved recording and representation of spatial data.
Digital methods provide archaeologists with ever-increasing opportunities to collect more data about the past in new formats. These larger evidentiary datasets, in turn, help us to address questions about the human past with increasing precision. To take full advantage of these opportunities, archaeologists must develop digital literacy skills and learn how to lead digital projects. Here, we describe seven digitally-based projects we have undertaken at the University of Pennsylvania in order to create new tools for archaeological data collection and sharing, as well as to test collaborative models for the digital humanities programming process. In these projects, archaeology students work directly with engineering students. Through this interface, the students from both areas gain valuable transdisciplinary experience while experimenting with new ways to accomplish programming goals and to collect archaeological data. The learning potential for these students was a key motivation for our initiative. Our projects have already led to several websites and digital applications that are available as open source downloads. We present our impressions of this collaborative process with the goal of encouraging other archaeologists to form similar digital humanities partnerships.
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