2.1. Reflections on Custom Mobile App Development for Archaeological Data Collection

With the widespread adoption of tablet computers in 2010, archaeologists quickly began to envision new ways of completing traditional tasks. The technology seemed particularly well-suited for replacing the paper-and-pencil approach to data collection. In 2011, a custom mobile application—PKapp—was developed for the 2012 field season of the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project in Cyprus. That application illuminated numerous possibilities for digital workflow in archaeological field research. Subsequently, mobile devices and software development tools have improved, making it easier to develop custom applications for data collection. Open-source HTML5 standards can ensure the software runs on any device regardless of platform, a robust selection of coding interfaces, libraries, and frameworks can speed up the development process and help avoid coding each line of the application by hand. This paper reflects upon the development of PKapp, considers the lessons learned, and describes how custom app development with open-source standards might be currently undertaken.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1009/thumbnail.jp

Mobilizing the Past for a Digital Future: The Potential of Digital Archaeology

This project brings together pioneers in the field during a two-day workshop to discuss the use, creation, and implementation of mobile tablet technology to advance paperless archaeology. Session themes will facilitate presentation, demonstration, and discussion on how archaeologists around the world use tablets or other digital tools in the field and lab and how best practices can be implemented across projects. The workshop will highlight the advantages and future of mobile computing and its challenges and limitations. The workshop will consist of formal paper sessions and opportunities for informal discussion of the issues and themes at moderated discussions, demonstrations, round tables, and speaker meals. The workshop's goal is to synthesize current practices and establish a blueprint for creating best practices and moving forward with mobile tablets in archaeology. The data generated will be made available through a website to promote ongoing discussion and information sharing

1.6. Digital Archaeology in the Rural Andes: Problems and Prospects

This chapter explores the social context of digital archaeology conducted in a developing nation, with an emphasis on the archaeological project at Chavín de Huántar, in Peru. One might argue that the relevance, audience, and benefits of digital archaeology are primarily designed for and associated with wealthy universities, but this chapter attempts to demonstrate that digital archaeology is relevant to a broader public and community audience than just academics in the global north. Digital methods are able to be both relevant and beneficial to local communities. These communities, however, are not always naturally included stakeholders in these conversations, and this is an issue that must be acknowledged. This chapter addresses some of the problems in transitioning to a fully digital archaeology in the Andes and the means by which archaeology can assist in decolonizing our knowledge of the past.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1007/thumbnail.jp

2.3 Beyond the Basemap: Multiscalar Survey through Aerial Photogrammetry in the Andes

The revolutionary capabilities of digital aerial photogrammetry open new avenues for archaeological research design, cultural heritage management, and spatial visualization and analysis. The low cost and high speed of aerial photogrammetry democratize and accelerate both the production and distribution of high-resolution digital 2D and 3D spatial representations of archaeological features, sites, and landscapes. With cultural patrimony disappearing at alarming rates around the world, the adoption of these techniques is an urgent priority. We review our methods and experiences using 3D photogrammetric registry at several scales in the diverse environmental conditions of the Andean region, using an array of inexpensive aerial imagery capture platforms, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones), meteorological balloons, and poles. The accuracy and resolution of the resulting products enable photogrammetric representations (e.g., orthomosaics, 3D solids, digital elevation models) to serve as the primary spatial references for survey and excavations. The methodological implications of these rapid advances have yet to be fully integrated into most archaeological research designs. Rather than using photogrammetry as a “value-added” technique appended to traditional survey or excavation, we outline workflows for rapid 3D photogrammetric documentation combined with mobile GIS. In sum, these transformative technologies and techniques enable the curation and broad dissemination of digital repositories of endangered cultural heritage, as well as dramatically richer spatial representations for an array of analytical ends in archaeological research.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1011/thumbnail.jp

1.3. Sangro Valley and the Five (Paperless) Seasons: Lessons on Building Effective Digital Recording Workflows for Archaeological Fieldwork

Since 2011 the Sangro Valley Project (Italy) has employed a custom-built paperless recording system with iPads and FileMaker at its core. This paper summarizes the evolution of the project’s paperless system and presents lessons learned during five seasons of use (2011–2015) and during the author’s work with two other projects: the Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia (Italy), and the Say Kah Archaeological Project (Belize). It identifies problems commonly encountered during the implementation of paperless systems and offers recommendations for avoiding or fixing them. Many of these problems are not unique to projects with digital recording systems, and most difficulties were not technical in nature. Rather, many of the most significant problems arose from integrating workflows. Digital recording systems can streamline fieldwork, improve the quality of data collected in the field, significantly reduce errors and misunderstandings, and facilitate new interpretive approaches, but they require thoughtful preparation and implementation.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1004/thumbnail.jp

Synthesis 2006

The purpose of this report is to summarize and synthesize activities and achievements of the CPWF through the end of 2006. The CPWF is a CGIAR Challenge Program designed to take on the global challenge of water scarcity and food security. It takes the form of an international, multi-institutional research-for-development initiative that brings together scientists, development specialists, and river basin communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It seeks to create and disseminate international public goods (IPGs) helpful in achieving food security, reducing poverty, improving livelihoods, reducing agriculture–related pollution, and enhancing environmental security. This Challenge Program is a three-phase, 15-year endeavor. Several years have passed since the start of Phase 1 (2003-2008) which began with an inception phase in 2003 and was followed by full CPWF launch in January 2004. Research projects began field operations in mid-2004. This synthesis report, then, only describes work carried out in the first two and a half years of the Program. During this time, CPWF has conducted its research on water and food in nine benchmark basins, organized around five different themes. This work is being implemented through “first call projects”, “basin focal projects”, “small grant projects” and “synthesis research”. This present report is one example of the latter. CPWF projects have made considerable progress in developing innovative technologies, policies and institutions to address water and food issues. Some projects focused on improving agricultural water productivity. Others focused on developing mechanisms to inform multi-stakeholder dialogue and negotiation, or explored ways to value water used to produce ecosystem services. Advances were also made in understanding water-foodpoverty links, and their regional and global policy context

Include 2011 : The role of inclusive design in making social innovation happen.

Include is the biennial conference held at the RCA and hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design. The event is directed by Jo-Anne Bichard and attracts an international delegation

4.2. Click Here to Save the Past

This chapter owes much to the trenchant criticism of Internet utopianism offered by Evgeny Morozov in his influential book, To Save Everything, Click Here (2014). As such, this essay reflects on some issues in the social and professional context of digital archaeology that rarely see public discussion. Digital archaeology is profoundly shaped by an institutional landscape that demands the commoditization, marketing, and branding of scholarship “as a service.” These forces make it extraordinarily difficult to sustain substantive and reflective intellectual engagement in our increasingly digitized discipline. As a strategy to overcome these issues, this contribution highlights why digital engagement requires much longer time scales in funding and greater professional commitment to recognizing the process and conduct of research rather than rewarding only the efficient production of measurable research outcomes.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1018/thumbnail.jp

2.4. An ASV (Autonomous Surface Vehicle) for Archaeology: The Pladypos at Caesarea Maritima, Israel

With the advent of new digital site recording technologies, archaeologists must manage spatial and visual datasets that have grown far beyond the capacity of last century’s paper notebooks. Turning to purely digital recording systems (“going paperless”) in underwater archaeology presents a different set of challenges from terrestrial archaeology and requires a specialized toolkit. The Pladypos prototype, an autonomous surface vehicle, responds to the need for underwater archaeological site mapping tools to be simple, robust, highly portable, and—where appropriate—to coordinate its operations effectively with human divers and tablet-based digital recording systems. Over several days in 2014, the Pladypos was deployed to map the Herodian port structures at Caesarea Maritima, Israel, one of the Mediterranean’s most important submerged coastal sites. In 2015, this mission was expanded to support the excavation of the site of a possible 11th-century a.d. Fatimid shipwreck found near the southern breakwater of Caesarea’s outer harbor.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1012/thumbnail.jp

1.4. DIY Digital Workflows on the Athienou Archaeological Project, Cyprus

For the last 25 years, the Athienou Archaeological Project (AAP) has conducted pedestrian survey and excavations of domestic, religious, and funerary sites in the Malloura Valley on Cyprus. To enhance the project’s research goals, excavation methods, and pedagogical mission, AAP has recognized the utility of thoughtfully integrating emergent technologies into the excavation process and has acknowledged the importance of acquainting students with such technologies. Indeed, AAP has participated in the transition from handwritten notebooks to born-digital, tablet-based recording. In 2011 AAP was among the earliest projects to embrace the “paperless” archaeology revolution that is quickly becoming standard in field archaeology. This chapter describes AAP’s transition to a do-it-yourself (DIY) hybrid archaeological recording system that integrates both born-digital and tablet-based on-site methods with existing paper-based modes of field recording. We discuss the benefits and drawbacks of system implementation and consider the impact of born-digital data recording on project workflows, research, and teaching.https://dc.uwm.edu/arthist_mobilizingthepast/1005/thumbnail.jp