Not Going There: Seeing, Depicting and Interpreting Archaeological Topography through Digital Media

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Vision in the Age of Big Data" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper explores a tension in field practice and interpretation in landscape archaeology. Digital 3D topographic data have proliferated, and the increasing availability of lidar DTMs are transforming the practice of archaeological topographic interpretation. As a toolkit for interpretation tailored to this digital medium is being developed, powerful ways of looking at digital topography have emerged, drawing on scientific data visualization and enhancement techniques. However, these advances do not directly translate to new approaches to interpretation and communication, for example by delimiting inter-related features. In contrast, archaeological survey of earthworks, particularly in the British tradition, draws on over 100 years of practice. This approach has archaeological experience, field observation and visual representation at its core. There are clear synergies between traditional field-based approaches to earthworks and the analytical tools and visualisations afforded by digital 3D environments. How then can we adapt our practices to develop ‘digital fieldwork skills’ for topographic interpretation and communication in a digital environment? This paper explores connections between our visual engagement with the landscape through traditional archaeological earthwork surveys in the field and entirely digital engagements through visualizing remotely sensed 3D data, and proposes a new methodology for digital fieldwork practice in archaeological topographic interpretation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Archaeological Vision in the Age of Big Data

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23916