Gone Digital: How Has Digitalization Changed Archaeology?
Keynote lecture by Dr. Jeremy Huggett (Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology, School of Humanities, University of Glasgow) for the Data and Technology Politics in Archaeology Workshop
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The Norwegian Institute at Athens is pleased to invite you to the lecture “Gone Digital: How Has Digitalization Changed Archaeology?” by Dr. Jeremy Huggett (Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Glasgow).
This lecture is the open keynote lecture for the Data and Technology Politics in Archaeology Workshop, the second volume of the Exploring the Layers of Digital Archaeological Practice workshop series (2024–2027) organized under the auspices of the Norwegian Institute at Athens and the Universities of Bergen, Oslo, and Patras
The lecture will take place on Wednesday, 3 December 2025, at 7:00 p.m. (EET) at the Norwegian Institute at Athens, Tsami Karatasou 5, 11742 Athens. The lecture will also be streamed online via Zoom.
Registration is required for both in-person and virtual attendance.
To attend in person, please register via email at norwinst@uib.no
To attend via Zoom, please register via the relevant link.
Abstract
It is perhaps surprising to realize that digital archaeology is now some seventy years old. Looking back into this prehistory of digital archaeology from the present day, it is clear that a great deal has changed over the intervening years, and the pace of that change has become increasingly rapid as time has passed. Archaeology has become ever more mediated and augmented by a growing variety of digital technologies embedded in day-to-day methods and research — but what have been the effects of this digitalization on archaeological practice over the years?
This presentation argues that the consequences of digitalization extend far beyond the development and implementation of new tools and novel devices. Going digital is about more than the ability to do more, to do things faster, to use ever larger amounts of data, and to use new tools that offer previously unconceived facilities. As the digital becomes embedded in practice, it becomes increasingly challenging to understand its influences through time: what might have been lost as well as gained.
The digital mediates our engagement with the past, both enabling and constraining thought and action through the devices we use. How has digital mediation influenced our practice and our engagement with the past? As digital objects increasingly substitute for the material, how do perceptions of archaeology and its evidence change? How is archaeological thought and understanding affected by a growing reliance on the digital? And what are the implications for the practice of archaeology now and in the future? Looking back on the process of digitalization allows us to better understand our responses to key changes and developments that have occurred — and to build on that learning as we move forward into the future.
Biographical Information
Dr. Jeremy Huggett is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Archaeology at the University of Glasgow, where he taught archaeology and computing from 1990 to 2020. He was one of the original consortium members behind the creation of the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) in 1996 and has served as chair of its management and advisory committees at various times. He is currently Vice-Chair of the ADS Management Committee, an Advisory Editor of Internet Archaeology, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute of Heritage Sciences (Incipit), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Dr. Huggett has written extensively on digital archaeology and maintains the blog Introspective Digital Archaeology.
