Kevin Garstki, ed., Critical Archaeology in the Digital Age: Proceedings of the 12th IEMA Visiting Scholar’s Conference (Los Angeles: The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2022). 9781950446261.
Reviewed by David M. Wheeler, University of California, Davis, dmwheeler@ucdavis.edu.
Critical Archaeology in the Digital Age is the second installment in the Cotsen Digital Archaeology Series and the result of the 12th annual Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology (IEMA) Visiting Scholar Conference, which was held April 2019 at the University at Buffalo. At the core of this edited volume is a desire to be more purposeful with and introspective of the ways in which we employ digital technologies. In the words of the volume editor, embracing critical approaches to digital archaeology offers “an opportunity to be intentional in our application of digital tools and consider the context in which we are using these tools” (p. 1). At the time of writing, the complete volume was available as an open access publication, which is in alignment with the underlying ethos of the book. Though the ancient Mediterranean is certainly the gravitational center of this volume, the discussions presented throughout the thirteen chapters, many of which are not focused on a specific geographical area or time period, will be relevant to archaeologists working all over the world.
The volume opens with an introduction by Garstki, who is the editor and was organizer of the conference. He lays out the particular challenges of digital archaeology (data creation, data archiving and sharing, analysis, publication, etc.) (pp. 2–4) and also the four major themes (making, engagement, planning for the future, and responsible citizenship) that he has identified as arising from critical discussion of archaeology and which are all present in the ensuing chapters (pp. 5–6). He then ends with a useful summary of the thirteen chapters that make up the volume and descriptions of the three sections into which they have been divided (pp. 6–8). Overall, his discussion is useful both in its own right and as a guide for what to expect in the other contributions. A different method of organization might have made this introduction a bit clearer and easier to follow, especially for students and scholars new to these topics, but overall Garstki does an excellent job of highlighting the challenges that archaeologists of the digital age face and how critical approaches to these issues offer us a way forward.
As noted, the chapters are divided into three sections. The first section, Impactful Technologies, brings together five case studies (Chapters 1–5) that explore how certain tools (3D digital and print replicas, 3D reconstructions, photogrammetry, etc.) are already inviting scholars to think about how digital practices shape our views of the past. This is followed by Rethinking Data, which interrogates how data can be reconciled, shared, accessed, and ethically reused (Chapters 6–9). The final section, The Past of Digital Futures, considers the dissemination of archaeological data and how digital archaeology will impact the future of publishing, data preservation, and global sustainability (Chapters 10–13).
Impactful Technologies starts out strong with Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco’s insightful exploration of the materiality of the past through 3D digital and printed models within museum settings (Chapter 1). She expertly blends survey data collected from museum visitors with theoretical discussions to consider how the authenticity of the replica can supersede that of the original. She argues that a visitor’s engagement with the replica through the sense of touch regenerates authenticity within the model because it does what the artifact itself cannot do: becomes an object that museum visitors can physically interact and play with. This is followed by Chapter 2, in which Fischer and Massey explore the scientific applications of 3D visualization using a case study from the Rome Reborn Project. They investigate how viewshed analysis from the east and west rostra of the forum signals a shift from a political to aesthetic function for the rostra, thus making a case for the analytical possibilities of digital reconstructions. In Chapter 3, Bria and Vasquez contemplate how including community stakeholders in the process of creating 3D models through photogrammetry can lead to new dialogues between archaeologists and community partners that decenter colonial patterns of knowledge production. Their contribution presents the early stages of their outreach program with the Quechua-speaking, agropastoral community of Hualcayán (Peru) and lays out how they have engaged with local schoolchildren to explore their observations about local artifacts and ruins.
This is followed by Chapter 4, in which Willett et al. map out how legacy data can be used to build predictive archaeological models that can aid in the process of protecting and conserving archaeological heritage. Using survey data collected over the past few decades, the Sagalassos Archaeological Research Project (Turkey) built a database of 704 individual sites at 289 geographical locations within the historically defined territory of ancient Sagalassos (ca. 1200 km2). They then used this data to build a series of predictive models from Late Prehistory to the Late Ottoman period that could be used as a tool for cultural heritage protection, especially when stakeholders can come together to work collaboratively. The section on case studies concludes with Harrison’s contribution (Chapter 5), which reconsiders the value of data obtained through salvage excavations and explores how digital tools provide opportunities to engage with unsorted data and gray literature and carry out research across the full lifecycle of digital data. Using the site of Seyitömer Höyük (Turkey) as a case study, Harrison demonstrates how data from salvage excavations (plans, drawings, photographs, site reports, etc.) was used to create 3D virtual reconstructions of the EBA III V-B phase of the settlement. The resources created from the salvage data not only illustrated critical elements of the construction, planning, and use of the settlement, but they were also used in outreach activities aimed at presenting archaeological material to schoolchildren.
Rethinking Data kicks off with Huggett’s critique of archaeology’s obsession with big data approaches that emphasize quantity over quality (Chapter 6). He argues that increasing the size or amount of data does not necessarily increase the information that can be derived from it. Instead, he advocates for a slow design principle that adopts a speed that is better suited to the situation. Such a reflexive and considerate approach foregrounds the complexity of data as a building block from which information and knowledge are constructed. This is followed by Štular’s paper, which addresses issues of big data from another perspective: the lack of dissemination of airborne LiDAR-derived data (Chapter 7). The sheer quantity of data produced by airborne LiDAR makes it difficult for scholars to publish under current scientific standards, which require ground assessment and physical dating evidence. While not wanting to deny the important role fieldwork plays in the archaeological process and the value of “ground-truthing” LiDAR data, Štular’s analysis argues “that the laboratory-based archaeological interpretation of airborne LiDAR-derived data is a knowledge production process in its own right, just as much as the bodily experience of fieldwork or interpretation of an artifact” (p. 115). He then goes on to suggest a series of standards that would allow LiDAR data to adhere to the expectations of scientific publication.
In Chapter 8, Opitz et al. outline their work on the “Keeping 3D Data Alive: Supporting Reuse and Repurposing of 3D Data in the Humanities” (KDA) project. Team members designed an information infrastructure (consisting of model creation, a repository, and 3D viewer) and workflows to support reuse, recombination, and reinterpretation of procedural modeling. This section then closes with Chapter 9, in which Kansa uses his experience overseeing Open Context to reflect on issues related to the infrastructure required to manage and communicate archaeological data in the digital age, as the capabilities and limitations of these systems shape the nature of our work. He raises many important points that often go undiscussed, such as how archaeology simultaneously benefits from the largely uncompensated work of the open-source community while also relying heavily on commercial infrastructure that can be problematic and may even undermine the aims of our scholarship.
The final section of the book, The Past of Digital Futures, opens with Caraher’s musings on the idea of a “digital workflow” in archaeological publishing (Chapter 10). Caraher engages in a theoretical discussion of conviviality and his own experience as a founder of and publisher at the Digital Press at the University of North Dakota to reflect on how digital workflows can deconstruct the barriers between research and publication. This can lead to more collaborative endeavors that break down traditional hierarchies and suggest ways in which authors and publishers can collaborate to create more dynamic models for publishing archaeological research. This is then followed by Rabinowitz’s exploration of potential futures of the digital archaeological archive (Chapter 11). His discussion of hypothetical researchers 150 years in the future argues that our attempts to imagine future archives should focus on what content we hope to preserve and why we want to preserve it rather than the exact media used to do so. He highlights how the shift to the digital archive not only presents questions concerning the longevity of born-digital data, but also how the massive scale of the digital archive has led to more selective practices that filter out important facets of the traditional archive. This includes documents such as correspondences that provide the crucial human context of our work; the absence of these and other documents in the archive limits the range of inquiry available to future archaeologists. As Rabinowitz concludes, ”If we take a narrow view of what belongs in a digital archaeological archive, we may pass on more information about the archaeological remains themselves than our predecessors did, but we will hand down to future researchers far less information about the research context than past archaeologists have given us, and we will restrict the kinds of scholarship that our archives can support” (p. 178).
Questions of the future of data continue into the final two chapters of the book. Tringham ponders the life histories of digital archaeological projects and how our publishing and archiving practices shape the nature of their afterlives (Chapter 12). Using her work in Serbia and Turkey as case studies, she explores some of the possible formats for project afterlives that keep data accessible and usable and deviate from the traditional long-form narrative, though she also highlights examples of digital projects that eventually find themselves in the Dead Web. The volume then closes on a sobering note with Richardson’s important discussion of the environmental and human costs of the digital revolution (Chapter 13), such as the impact and long-term costs of extracting resources, building hardware, equipment waste, and generating and storing data. In considering, among other things, the hidden climate impact of digital archaeology, he argues that “the use of digital technologies is not a neutral position and is not free from harm” (p. 204). The data Richardson presents on the hidden costs of digital archaeology are staggering, and this chapter should be required reading for anyone working on or initiating digital projects. It is also an excellent example of the importance of critical approaches to archaeology. Richardson is not calling for the abandonment of digital archaeology in the face of the climate crisis, but he charges scholars to be more intentional with how and why we engage with digital archaeology so that we can create more sustainable, responsible projects.
In closing, this collection of papers presents an invaluable roundtable on many of the issues that archaeologists of the digital age need to consider. Though its emphasis on the digital will doubtlessly lead more traditional archaeologists to believe that these contributions are not relevant to their work, they are sorely mistaken. The challenges and themes that Garstki presents in his introduction, and which are deeply integrated into all the contributions, are relevant to all archaeologists regardless of their relationship to digital technologies and methodologies. Though this collection presents few hard answers to the many issues facing archaeologists in the digital age, it does offer a way forward. Indeed, these contributions uphold the mission of critical archaeology in that they open up these concerns for consideration and discussion and invite us to be more intentional, purposeful, and deliberate with how we shape the discipline moving forward.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations (vii–ix)
List of Tables (ix)
Acknowledgments (xi)
Contributors (xii–xiv)
Introduction: Challenges of a Critical Archaeology in the Modern World / Kevin Garstki (1–9)
Impactful Technologies
1. The Ontology of 3D and Printed Replicas of Artifacts Inside Museums: Authenticity, Play, and the Sense of Touch / Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco (11–22)
2. 3D Urban Models as Tools for Research and Discovery: Two Case Studies of the Rostra in the Roman Forum Utilizing Rome Reborn / Bernard Frischer and David Massey (23–47)
3. Digital Archaeology and Storytelling as a Toolkit for Community-Engaged Archaeology / Rebecca E. Bria and Erick Casanova Vasquez (49–65)
4. Modeling Archaeological Potentials in Southwest Anatolia: A Tool for Planning Sustainable Futures at Ancient Sagalassos / Patrick T. Willett, W. Christopher Carleton, Ebru Torun, Ralf Vandam, and Jeroen Poblome (67–78)
5. Closing the Loop on the Digital Data Lifecycle: Reviving a Salvage Archaeology Dataset / Laura K. Harrison (79–96)
Rethinking Data
6. Is Less More? Slow Data and Datafication in Archaeology / Jeremy Huggett (97-110)
7. Scientific Dissemination of Archaeological Interpretation of Airborne LiDAR-derived Data / Benjamin Štular (111–22)
8. Exploring 3D Data Reuse and Repurposing through Procedural Modeling / Rachel Optiz, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Karin Dalziel, Jessica Dussault, and Greg Tunink (123–39)
9. On Infrastructure, Accountability, and Governance in Digital Archaeology / Eric C. Kansa (141–52)
The Past of Digital Futures
10. Collaborative Digital Publishing in Archaeology: Data, Workflows, and Books in the Age of Logistics / William Caraher (153–63)
11. (Re)imagining the Archaeological Archive or the Twenty-second Century / Adam Rabinowitz (165–83)
12. On the Digital and Analog Afterlives of Archaeological Projects / Ruth Tringham (185–200)
13. The Dark Side of Digital Heritage: Ethics and Sustainability in Digital Practice / Lorna-Jane Richardson (201–10)
Discussion
1. Could you speak to the original goals and themes of the conference and how they are reflected in the published contributions? In what ways did these papers expand on or move beyond the brief of the conference to explore other issues that reflected in the publication?
The initial concept behind the conference was to bring together individuals, primarily working in Europe, who were contending with the integration of digital technologies in various aspects of archaeological research and practice. More specifically, scholars were asked to engage with this integration through the lens of critical adoption, not only the technical impact but also the ethical and methodological repercussions. In the volume that followed, the authors expanded significantly on these ideas, in both length and scope, some developing completely different ideas from that which they presented on. The conference setting afforded the authors time to discuss and collaborate on ideas that were eventually reflected in their chapters, providing threads of unity woven through many of the contributions.
2. In your introduction, the volume is framed as a call to action to be more critical of the ways in which we engage with digital approaches to archaeology. Do you have any suggestions for how students and early career scholars in particular could make critical approaches more central to their research and pedagogy?
While I feel somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of a call to action, because it presumes I know the directions that practitioners in the field must take, I do believe we all need reminders about the broad and complex impact of our work. The critical approach I would recommend to students and early career scholars might come in the form of tentative excitement; innovation and newness is exciting and appealing but can also be accompanied by deep integration of the short- and long-term repercussions.
3. Looking at the challenges and themes that you present in your introduction, as well as the problems, possibilities, and potential futures laid out by these contributions, what do you see as being the important next steps for a critical (digital) archaeology?
I don’t think it is revelatory to suggest that artificial intelligence will continue to expand in its use and influence on archaeological practice. This will require (digital) archaeologists to become even more flexible and willing to adjust our thoughts, expectations, ethics, and engagement quickly as these technologies also change quickly.
4. Given your own research and engagement with digital archaeology, how have the contributions in this volume started to inspire and shape you and where do you think the field is going, given advancements in digital techniques?
The brilliant contributions of these scholars inspired a sense of excitement and hope for the field. While so much of archaeology practice is hidden or siloed from a wide view, where the final product is all we see, knowing that many others are contending with and developing innovative ways to meet the challenge of an increasingly digital practice is extremely heartening. And it will hopefully do the same for other readers.
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