Archaeological Visualization: Towards an Archaeological Information Science (AISc)

Abstract

This paper reviews and evaluates the potential use of modern visualization techniques in archaeology. It suggests the need to apply and develop such techniques as a central part of any modern archaeological investigation. The use of these methods is associated with wider questions about data representations, in particular, their integration with archaeological theory and their role in facilitating analysis and shaping interpretation. Concern for these questions and with the overall potential that information systems provide to capture, represent, analyze, and model archaeological information suggests the need for a new interdisciplinary focus, Archaeological Information Science. For such a focus to prosper, archaeologists need to develop additional skills that go beyond mere technical ones. They need to become more active in the design and creation of future information archaeological systems. To this end, archaeologists are urged to view this task as a way to extend archaeology in new directions and to recognize that the digital representation and treatment of archaeological information can generate new forms of doing archaeology.