Archaeological Exploration of Digital Spaces

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Cultural processes extend into digital places and create archaeological sites that unfold in relationships between physical assemblages and assemblages that are not physical. Archaeological sites like these require that we translate our methods and extend our theory to understand behavior in the contemporary world. A distinction between two types of archaeological sites can be made: Some digital places resemble three-dimensional spaces, such as the constructed landscapes of many videogames. Other digital places have no apparent landscape, such as the “spaces” where collaborative work takes place, chat rooms, or discussion forums. Archaeology is uniquely positioned to make sense of human culture and to contextualize the use of these new kinds of places within larger social systems and long-term change. An archaeology of spaceless places is necessary to make sense of the relationships of power and trajectories of technological change in the recent past. This paper describes a case study in which behavioral chain analysis is used to analyze a digital assemblage and identify relationships of power and labor within a specific cultural context. An archaeology of digital environments will open new avenues for applied and collaborative archaeological inquiry.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39816.0