Harvard Yard Archaeology Project is a university museum, academic and community focused effort with special attention to the 17th-century educational institution. Years of investigation in the Yard highlight remarkable artifacts, features, public archaeology, and more recently, digital methods. Project stories contribute to local archaeology and broader significance in the archaeology of colonial institutions, health, and indigenous education. Recent field findings and demonstrations of digital archaeology come together from student contributors and study partners. Examples include GIS data visualization and analysis, 3D imaging, a web-based interpretative and data access platform, and an augmented reality application. The theme of heritage issues on campus and within community archaeology anchors discussion.

Panelists: Patricia Capone (Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University), Diana Loren (Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University), Wade Campbell (Dept of Anthropology, Harvard University), Jeff Emanuel (Academic Technology, Harvard University), Diana Gerberich (Harvard University), Jeremy Guillette (Academic Technology, Harvard University), Christina Hodge (Stanford University), Sarah Johnson (Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University), Nam Kim (Dept of Anthropology, Harvard University), John Stubbs (The Paideia School; and Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University), Paul Tamburro (Dept of Anthropology, Harvard University), Alex McQuilling (Harvard University)

This workshop will adopt a forum format to explore the construction of island identities in relation to mainland identities in the Iron Age Mediterranean. This topic is the focus of a major new project based at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK. The project involves the archaeological investigation of island identities on Cyprus, Crete, and Sardinia during the period ca. 1100–600 B.C.E., and will culminate in a large-scale exhibition in September 2021.

The aim of this workshop session is to kick-start the project with a radical and open exchange of ideas, adopting a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective to develop new approaches to the topic. It will begin with the presentation of a case study—that of Cyprus and Cilicia. Subsequent speakers will respond to this, and workshop participants will be encouraged to use the example case as a jumping off point to explore other instances and broader implications.

The workshop will be moderated by project’s P.I. and Lead Curator.

Moderators: Anastasia Christofilopoulou, University of Cambridge, and Naoíse Mac Sweeney, University of Leicester

Panelists: Jo Quinn, University of Oxford, Marian Feldman, Johns Hopkins University, Evi Margaritis, The Cyprus Institute, Jana Mokrisova, Birkbeck College, University of London, Louise Hitchcock, The University of Melbourne, and Jeffrey P. Emanuel, Harvard University

Since the turn of the millennium, students in the Harvard College course Anthropology 1130 “The Archaeology of Harvard Yard” have participated in a biennial excavation of a portion of Harvard Yard, the center of America's oldest college. The course includes excavation, conservation, analysis, and cataloguing of material finds, many of which are displayed by the Peabody Museum for Archaeology and Ethnology in an exhibit called “Digging Veritas.” 

In the 2016 field season, the Peabody Museum and Harvard’s Academic Technology group partnered to integrate digital methods into the excavation process and the course. This began by gathering geospatial and photogrammetric data from the excavation, by building 3D models of the excavation trenches, and by developing and supporting an Omeka site for images and “object biographies” of key finds. This partnership has since focused on the development of an Augmented Reality (AR) application that will help accomplish the public archaeology and cultural heritage missions of the excavation and exhibit by enabling the public – physically at Harvard Yard or around the world – to interact with the excavation and its results, and to learn about the early history of American higher education, including its multicultural nature and the experiences of the students who lived it. 

This presentation discusses the purpose of the excavations and the integration of digital methods, lessons learned, and future prospects, and offers a hands-on demonstration of the AR application for use and feedback.

Recent years have seen an increase in digital scholarship, in digital methods-related courses, and in the integration of digital components into courses and assignments. At Harvard, the latter has been encouraged through the Digital Teaching Fellow, or DiTF, program, an initiative to support the thoughtful redesigning of courses to support the integration of digital methods and tools into learning objectives and curricula. With no formal “digital scholarship center,” “digital humanities center,” or other formal support structure, the challenge of providing necessary support for these increases in digital methods and tools was met by a group of key role players from around the university. 

Beginning as an informal gathering, this supporting cast has developed into the Digital Scholarship Support Group, or DSSG, a decentralized network that strives to foster the acquisition of digital literacy and the use of digital methods and tools in teaching, learning, and research. Its members, which represent multiple disparate departments, centers, and organizations across Harvard, take a “no wrong door” approach to supporting and furthering digital scholarship, working together to provide the University community with a single point of entry to the resources available to them.

A core focus of the DSSG is providing greatly-in-demand training to students, teaching fellows, faculty, and staff. The DSSG’s training seminars focus on the fundamentals of digital scholarship, on the integration of digital tools and methods into pedagogy, and on specific genres of tools and methods (for example, Visualization), and each is re-thought and redesigned based on the feedback of previous participants. 

A key DSSG offering is the Digital Teaching Methods seminar. Initially created to train the aforementioned DiTFs, this workshop focuses on the learning goal–based integration of digital tools and methods into pedagogical approaches, providing hands-on introductions in the context of specific pedagogical examples and use cases. Unlike many ‘teaching with technology’–related efforts that focus on specific tools or on the digital genre in general, the DSSG’s approach emphasizes using technology to enhance learning, addressing both the practical mechanics of employing these tools and approaches and the pedagogical needs that they serve.

This presentation focuses on the impetus for the DSSG’s formation and persistence, the iteratively-developed and user-focused nature of its activities, and future prospects in the digital scholarship space, with an emphasis on the pedagogical advances and support made available by the group’s efforts.

The goal of this session is to convene practitioners in a dialogue that is focused on examples of digitally-informed approaches to archaeological instruction in any setting. This can include field schools, workshops, seminars, massive open online courses (MOOCs), and more. Contributions to this session can consist of successful approaches to integrating digital methods into the instruction of archaeology and cultural heritage, either in the classroom, online, or via hybrid methods, as well as lessons learned from approaches that were not as successful as desired.

This session is partly planned as a follow-up to the CAA 2017 session Archaeology In and Out of the Classroom." We envision it as being interactive in nature: paper presentations may be supplemented by demonstrations of digital tools and approaches, and projects that are in the planning or pilot stage, or that are in need of reworking to improve results, can be discussed or workshopped by session participants. The ultimate goals for presenters and attendees alike are to gain better understanding of pedagogical approaches to archaeology, to leave better equipped to intelligently apply digital methods and tools to teaching, and to have made contacts within a community of practice to whom they can go with future ideas, questions, and challenges.

This session focuses on the thoughtful integration of digital methods into the processes of gathering, recording, interrogating, and publishing archaeological data. Digital publications, geospatial datasets, and three-dimensional presentation are examples of interactive approaches to what has been called “digital archaeology.” This interactivity can be taken a step further, as approaches like Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality (AR, VR, and MR) allow for the fostering of immersive experiences around the reconstruction, visualization, and presentation of archaeological data.

This session highlights all aspects of digital innovation in the survey, excavation, interrogation, and publication process, with particular emphasis on 3D modeling and printing, data interoperability, and VR, AR, and MR. It is intended both to serve as a follow-up to the CAA 2017 session on 3D modeling, AR/VR, and immersion (chaired by the session proposer), and to foster further discussion about the uses of interactive and immersive technologies both in the field, and in the presentation and analysis of objects and datasets.

The format of this session will be a combination of interactive presentation and discussion, with a specific emphasis on demonstrations of 3D reconstruction, Virtual/Augmented and Mixed Reality experiences, online presentation, and other interactive and immersive approaches to excavation, recording, and dissemination. Our goal is to cultivate a needed community of practice and shared knowledge around these techniques and approaches, while working together to support the highest quality of digital methods and processes in archaeological practice.

The continuous development and adoption digital methods, tools, and technologies is having an impact on virtually every field. In archaeology, these developments affect the way we carry out excavations, conservation, publication, and all of the steps in between. Similarly, technology has become such an ingrained part of teaching and learning that what used to be referred to separately as “teaching with technology” has now simply become a part of teaching writ large.

The convergence between technologically-informed teaching and the practice of archaeology takes place on multiple levels, from introductory instruction to higher-order skills needed for fieldwork and data analysis. Similarly, it is realized through multiple modalities, including in person – in the field and in the classroom – and online, as well as in a hybrid form consisting of classroom/field and classroom/online combinations.

The goal of this session is to convene practitioners in a dialogue that is focused on examples of digitally-informed approaches to archaeological instruction in any setting, from seminars to massive open online courses (MOOCs) to field workshops, etc. To that end, we invite contributions that speak to the application of digital methods to the teaching of archaeology as a subject and as a practice. These contributions can consist of successful approaches to integrating digital methods into the instruction of archaeology and cultural heritage, either in the classroom, online, or via hybrid methods, as well as lessons learned from less successful approaches.

We envision this as an interactive session: paper presentations may be supplemented by demonstrations of digital tools and approaches, and projects that are in the planning or pilot stage, or that are in need of reworking to improve results, can be discussed or ‘workshopped’ by session participants, with the ultimate goal of gaining a better understanding of, and becoming better equipped to intelligently apply, digital methods and tools to the teaching of archaeology.

Innovations in digital recording have caused the amount of data collected during modern archaeological excavations to dwarf that collected only a few years ago – let alone in the excavations of the previous century. The thoughtful integration of digital methods into the process (from excavation to publication) can assist in more complete recording and, just as importantly, meaningful presentation and dissemination of these data. The integration into the digital picture of data from prior excavations and campaign seasons, which may have been recorded in different formats and following different methodologies, is also important.

Digital publications, geospatial datasets, and 3D printed objects are examples of interactive approaches to this problem. This is can be taken a step further with immersion, as modern approaches like Augmented, Virtual, and Mixed Reality allow us to create truly immersive experiences around the reconstruction, visualization, and presentation of data.

In archaeology, interaction and immersion can serve at least two purposes: (1) exhibition and display, which can include the digital supplements to publications and exhibits, physical reconstruction and replication, and virtual reconstruction of sites and artifacts, including those that no longer physically exist; and (2) the close examination of live datasets, which can run the gamut from database queries to the 3D rendering of archaeological data in situ for the purpose of discovery, analysis, and information sharing. Archaeological data in particular are well–suited to Augmented and Virtual Reality for both presentation and dataset exploration, as GIS points and associated finds, which are inherently three–dimensional, connote possible shapes, models, and textures.

This session is intended to foster discussion about the uses of interactive and immersive technologies both in the field, and in the presentation and analysis of objects and datasets. Its format will be a combination of interactive presentation and discussion, with a specific emphasis on demonstrations of 3D reconstruction, Virtual/Augmented and Mixed Reality experiences, online presentation, and other interactive and immersive approaches to excavation, recording, and dissemination. Our goal is to cultivate the community of practice and shared knowledge around these techniques and approaches, while working together to support the highest quality of research and dissemination of archaeological data in this digital age.