Computer applications in archaeology

Computer applications in archaeology have been a feature of archaeology since the 1950s. From the 1950s into the 1980s they were closely associated with quantitative methods, but since then, the increasing availability and capability of personal computers has seen a dramatic growth in use. Beyond standard office software, key application areas in archaeology include databases, geographical information systems, and data visualization. The expansion of the Internet and the World Wide Web has seen the development of new means of communicating archaeological information, such as the provision of access to online data and data archives

Aplicacions de les tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació en arqueología : la prospecció geofísica

Una de les primeres disciplines humanístiques que va incorporar les tecnologies de la informació va ser precisament l'arqueologia, que fa poc va celebrar el 25 aniversari dels Congressos Internacionals sobre el tema (Computer Applications in Archaeology, Birmingham 1972-1997). Hi ha hagut diversos camps d'aplicació de programaris i maquinaris informàtics en arqueologia, però potser un dels més autòctons o genuïns de l'especialitat és la prospecció geofísica, i sobretot en el fa al seu tractament digital en els darrers 20 anys

Challenging Digital Archaeology

A keynote presentation at the 2012 Computer Applications in Archaeology (CAA) conference in Southampton (UK) proposed the use of grand challenges as a vehicle for identifying and pursuing major advances in Digital Archaeology. At the same time, it was argued that this should be a collaborative venture. This was taken forward at a round table session at the 2014 CAA in Paris, and a number of papers in this volume were presented there. This paper introduces the concept of grand challenges for Digital Archaeology and seeks to define their key characteristics

Correction: Whither Digital Archaeological Knowledge? The Challenge of Unstable Futures

This article details a correction to the article: Huggett, J., Reilly, P. and Lock, G., 2018. Whither Digital Archaeological Knowledge? The Challenge of Unstable Futures. 'Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology', 1(1), pp. 42–54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.7

The apparatus of digital archaeology

Digital Archaeology is predicated upon an ever-changing set of apparatuses – technological, methodological, software, hardware, material, immaterial – which in their own ways and to varying degrees shape the nature of Digital Archaeology. Our attention, however, is perhaps inevitably more closely focussed on research questions, choice of data, and the kinds of analyses and outputs. In the process we tend to overlook the effects the tools themselves have on the archaeology we do beyond the immediate consequences of the digital. This paper introduces cognitive artefacts as a means of addressing the apparatus more directly within the context of the developing archaeological digital ecosystem. It argues that a critical appreciation of our computational cognitive artefacts is key to understanding their effects on both our own cognition and on the creation of archaeological knowledge. In the process, it defines a form of cognitive digital archaeology in terms of four distinct methods for extracting cognition from the digital apparatus layer by layer

Archaeological practices, knowledge work and digitalisation

Defining what constitute archaeological practices is a prerequisite for understanding where and how archaeological and archaeologically relevant information and knowledge are made, what counts as archaeological information, and where the limits are situated. The aim of this position paper, developed as a part of the COST action Archaeological practices and knowledge work in the digital environment (www.arkwork.eu), is to highlight the need for at least a relative consensus on the extents of archaeological practices in order to be able to understand and develop archaeological practices and knowledge work in the contemporary digital context. The text discusses approaches to study archaeological practices and knowledge work including Nicolini’s notions of zooming in and zooming out, and proposes that a distinction between archaeological and archaeology-related practices could provide a way to negotiate the ‘archaeologicality’ of diverse practices