Session: #192

Content:

The use of geospatial technologies in archaeological research has reached unprecedented levels. GPS-enabled smartphones, online viewing platforms for high-resolution satellite imagery, cheaper and lighter drones, and click-and-go photogrammetry software have dramatically and irreversibly changed archaeological practice. Today, an archaeological project without a GIS element is considered ill-defined. Google Earth is as essential to field surveys as geophysical prospection is to an excavation. The “spatial turn” that revolutionized the humanities in the 1980s is being reinforced once again, this time with a digital twist that encompasses a range of geospatial technologies including GIS, remotely-sensed imagery, geophysical survey, and 3D visualization.

We invite researchers to contribute ideas on the praxis of geospatial technologies in archaeology and to critically assess how these technologies are being used today. These ideas may be built around the set of questions: What are the current and future impacts of the use of geospatial technologies on marginalized perspectives of archaeology (e.g. feminist or indigenous archaeologies)? Are these technologies succeeding in bridging theoretical gaps within archaeology, or are their capabilities limited by the ongoing geospatial revolution in other (non-)academic circles? What are the implicit and explicit implications of using proprietary geospatial software and corporate- or military-derived technology in academic research? What are the implications of the regulatory nature of geospatial methodologies (i.e. workflows that have been regulated and/or optimized by “best practices” or by specific groups, organizations, or corporations)? How do the “big data” paradigm and the “slow archaeology” movement conflict and/or intersect?

Session: #192

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