Digital Humanities, Digital Archaeology

Computer Application and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology conference 2023 (CAA 2023)

Amsterdam. Países baixos
Congreso. 2023

At CAA 2022 in Oxford, the roundtable “Archaeology and Digital Humanities: The Road Already Travelled and the Road Ahead” produced a fruitful discussion on the commonalities and differences between Digital Humanities and Digital Archaeology, two fields that have seemingly evolved in parallel over the last two decades without much interchange. There is a chapter on “Computing for archaeologists” in (Schreibman et al., 2004), where the authors describe a barrier to the inclusion of archaeology as part of the Digital Humanities in these terms:

“The discipline at large has not fully absorbed the need to preserve access to digital data for future scholars. It has not yet found an effective and relatively standard way to present digital data as part of a final publication. Its educational institutions have not accepted the need to prepare all archaeologists in the use of those computer technologies necessary in the field and the laboratory. In part, these problems reflect the nature of the discipline, a uniquely fragmented one consisting of practitioners who may have begun as historians, art historians, students of ancient languages, or anthropologists – but not as scientists dependent upon a tradition of prompt and full data sharing. The problems also reflect the unique independence of archaeologists, who must have a strong entrepreneurial spirit in order to fund and operate complex projects.”

Of course, many of these barriers have been eased since then. A subsequent edition of the same work, (Schreibman et al., 2016), however, focuses on the methodologies and technologies used by the Digital Humanities rather than the epistemological or theoretical grounds of these fields, somewhat diluting their relationship. In addition, (Huggett, 2012) also points out that the relationships between digital archaeology and the Digital Humanities are difficult to determine, given the vagueness with which Digital Humanities have been described. This issue compounds the problem of tracing and studying the relationships between the two disciplines.

In any case, the fact that both fields have been coexisting for decades and generating academic, professional, and disciplinary knowledge separately but bringing together very similar works in methodologies, approaches, and technologies merits a profound reflection on the implications and consequences of seeing archaeological computing as a branch of the Digital Humanities.

The round table will generate an open debate in which three guest speakers will offer position papers for and against placing archaeological computing work within the sphere of Digital Humanities, motivating the advantages and disadvantages of doing so, and delving into the possible weaknesses and strengths of doing so, showing real examples and/or collaborations. The main objective is to continue shedding light on this disciplinary relationship. The guest speakers will be invited considering their contributions to these fields, and ensuring that a diverse and comprehensive set of viewpoints are presented.

Guest speakers (and hopefully attendees) will address these topics:

• What is Digital Humanities? What is Digital Archaeology?

• What are the commonalities and differences between the two fields in terms of theory, methods, techniques, and results?

• How are multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinarity issues handled by each field?

• Which of these differences are accidental, and which essential?

• Can or should Digital Archaeology be considered part of the Digital Humanities?

• How can Digital Archaeology benefit from the advance in Digital Humanities and vice versa?

• What converging strategies are possible and adequate between the two fields?

Digital humanities. Archaeology.