Turning Dirt into Pixels

By Colleen Morgan

CLEAN * PHOTOGRAPH * DRAW * LEVEL * RECORD * SAMPLE * DIG * SORT ARTIFACTS * REPEAT

In archaeological field work it is easy to become entranced. We have a cyclical mode of work, and it is this work that field archaeologists like the best, the kind that happens when the sun is shining, there’s a cool breeze at your back, and the archaeology is making sense.

We clean the context, we take a photograph of it, we draw it, take levels, start a record of the context, take a sample of the context, excavate it, sort the artifacts, finish the record, then start all over again. While there have been accusations of this mechanizing the archaeological process, single context excavation is more akin to a refrain, a rhythm of work that you must fully understand and internalize before extemporaneous invention. Against this background beat, work can become “fluid and flexible,” emancipatory, or just another day toward a beer and a paycheck.

Digital archaeology is an interruption to the continuity of our process; digital photography, soft photogrammetry, tablet recording, laser scanning, not to mention digital video, live tweeting, and podcasting are all edging into our workflow with varying levels of integration. Indeed, the main body of writing about digital archaeology is the explanation of these attempts at integration and technical issues regarding digital data in archaeology, with relatively little consideration of the large body of theory that attends digital media.

In my previous research I addressed this lack by creating an interdisciplinary space that incorporated theory and methodology from new media, visual studies, and archaeology that queried the materiality of digital archaeological objects created while working in the field. To create a better, theoretically informed digital archaeology I found that increasing the visibility of the researcher, the inclusion of multiple perspectives, a consideration of transparency and sharing, and attention to the multiple contexts that digital objects inhabit are all critical points.

Even so, breaking out of the cycle of field excavation to create digital objects is difficult, and in the field there is rarely the luxury of time to attend to digital object creation beyond the bare minimum. Other archaeologists find it distracting and field directors discourage the time spent on creating media that are outside of the site archive and not filtered through site interpretation at higher levels Additionally, field archaeology is truly only meditative in the most ideal of circumstances, as constant distractions and interruptions come from all sides, especially if there are students or workmen on site.

The most common reaction to this problem of creating digital media in the field is to assign it to a specialist who spends all of their time in the field taking photographs, creating digital videos, tweeting, or laser scanning. Unfortunately, this often creates a disconnect between the field work and the digital interpretation; the digital archaeologist is rarely a skilled field archaeologist and misses nuances of the excavation work. The field archaeologists can feel removed from the process at best and subjects of surveillance at worst.

Best practice in digital archaeology trains each of the archaeologists to use digital tools to disseminate archaeological information and, most importantly, budgets time from the excavation schedule to allow creative interaction with digital media while in the field. While some archaeologists may not embrace digital practice fully, or even partially, working with the entire team and creating both a sense of trust and feelings of authorship leads to a more transparent, multivocal, and robust digital archaeology.

I have previously argued for an addition to our cycle of field work: clean, photograph, draw, level, record, sample, dig, sort artifacts, SHARE, then repeat–to create a digital ecology of sharing on site. Once integrated into skilled archaeological practice, the spontaneous, creative, and delightful interpretive moments that we share in the trench can be transmitted to the wider world.

Colleen Morgan received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. She blogs at Middle Savagery and tweets @clmorgan.

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