The digital future of the past – Research potential with increasingly FAIR archaeological data
Åsa M. Larsson, Daniel Löwenborg · Oxbow Books · 2020
The development of technical tools for digital documentation of excavations has equipped archaeologists with increasingly powerful ways to generate high-quality data. With the use of digital documentation, GIS, photogrammetry and a wide range of scientific analyses, each excavation can produce large quantities of interrelated data. These new practices provide great opportunities for knowledge production, but also huge challenges. Aggregating the vast quantities of data produced by contract archaeology is still a monumental and time-consuming task due to diverse terminologies, use of proprietary software and poor digital archival practices. With the ongoing development of national and international infrastructures that can make