Your Own Digital Archaeology
This course has not even begun to scratch the surface of what a digital archaeology could be. There are digital archaeologies that focus on the work in the field, towards ever better practices and data collection. There are digital archaeologies that try to upend our notions of what it means to publish archaeological work. There are digital archaeologies that aim to immerse us in the past. This is not an exhaustive list.
The fact is, the digital extends our cognition in ways - for good and for ill - that we still are only in the opening stages of grappling with. The fundamental action of a computer is to copy, and so the choices we make when we render something computable have unforeseen and often unintended consequences when these choices scale up and multiply. When we use computation and digital tools in archaeology, the tool is making us even as we use it to make an understanding of the past/present.
I want therefore to extend an invitation to you to explore these issues further. There are a variety of ways you might do this. Perhaps you explore these issues in your coursework in other classes. Perhaps you apply to my X-Lab. Perhaps you apply for the Graham Undergraduate Digital History Research Fellowship. I have supervised undergraduate Honours research projects (HIST4910, 1.0 credit) in the past on the historical consciousness of Dwarf Fortress, and on Bronze Age feasting (using network analysis) - just to give you an idea of the range of things I’m prepared to support. Maybe you’re thinking of grad school and want to bounce some ideas around. If any of this sort of thing sparks your interest, then let’s talk. I’m open to ideas. We might not have an archaeology degree at Carleton, but archaeological ways of knowing can be explored many ways.