Via HASTAC: How will digital humanities impact archaeology and ancient history?
One major opportunity linking DH and archaeology is the ever-increasing access we have to archaeological landscapes. This new project in Wales is a great example,http://www.cofiadurcahcymru.org.uk/arch/archwilio_pages/english/app.html. You can use tablets or mobile devices to see the archaeology underfoot for thousands of sites across Wales. At UCLA, we also have multiple DH projects that allow us to reconstruct architecture within its landscape, allowing new ways to analyze and explore, for example digital Karnak (http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak/experience). I am interested to see how people use these different models to create new analytical approaches. I have a colleague, for example, who is using a digital model to record multi-sensory information throughout the model, using the three-dimensional environment to not only look at space, but also how that space and those materials would affect temperature, sound, and smell. At the same time, after having done some 3d-laser scanning myself, I see that there's a lot of exciting directions in this field, but simultaneously, I am concerned that without directed research problems, these models will use a lot of resources without answering many more questions.
