4 ms·

You complain about not waiting for new tech, and then complain about not using current tech. What use is future tech going to be if it's applied with the same k

by vacri 9y ago

You complain about not waiting for new tech, and then complain about not using current tech. What use is future tech going to be if it's applied with the same kind of people? Also, what kind of tech are you expecting to be developed that will be available to archaeologists? It's not like they get CERN's budget.

mncharity 9y ago
> You complain about not waiting for new tech, and then complain about not using current tech. Excavation is destruction. One tries to maximize the value (by documentation, etc), and minimize the loss (by preserving samples, and leaving most of the site for future archaeologists). Minimum viable destruction. When it's an excavation of choice, and not necessity (rescue archaeology of a threatened site), what threshold of acceptability should be used, has been a subject of disagreement. > budget Areas with limited funding depend on the tech of others. As construction as-built documentation gets bulk incremental imaging, 3D reconstruction, and data management, so will archaeology. Same with radar mapping of ground, and of walls. As pro-ams get high-resolution multispectral imaging, so does archaeology. As molecular biology costs continue to decline by orders of magnitude, it changes biology research, medicine, ... and archaeology. And so on. > What use is future tech going to be if it's applied with the same kind of people? I don't quite understand the question. But one thing that changes is knowing what's valuable to retain. With pollen dating, there's effort to sample for pollen. If isolated seeds gain value in some context, or tiny fragments of bone or insects, then there's more incentive to conserve them. Grabbing samples against unknown future opportunity is done, but without knowing what it will be used for, or what properties will be needed, it's rather haphazard.

by vacri 9y ago

mncharity 9y ago

> You complain about not waiting for new tech, and then complain about not using current tech. Excavation is destruction. One tries to maximize the value (by documentation, etc), and minimize the loss (by preserving samples, and leaving most of the site for future archaeologists). Minimum viable destruction. When it's an excavation of choice, and not necessity (rescue archaeology of a threatened site), what threshold of acceptability should be used, has been a subject of disagreement. > budget Areas with limited funding depend on the tech of others. As construction as-built documentation gets bulk incremental imaging, 3D reconstruction, and data management, so will archaeology. Same with radar mapping of ground, and of walls. As pro-ams get high-resolution multispectral imaging, so does archaeology. As molecular biology costs continue to decline by orders of magnitude, it changes biology research, medicine, ... and archaeology. And so on. > What use is future tech going to be if it's applied with the same kind of people? I don't quite understand the question. But one thing that changes is knowing what's valuable to retain. With pollen dating, there's effort to sample for pollen. If isolated seeds gain value in some context, or tiny fragments of bone or insects, then there's more incentive to conserve them. Grabbing samples against unknown future opportunity is done, but without knowing what it will be used for, or what properties will be needed, it's rather haphazard.