Transcript

Ask an Archaeologist: Tech Edition

From ArchaeologyTV · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 2 min · 11,000 words · 109 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Ask an Archaeologist: Tech Edition", an episode of ArchaeologyTV published September 30, 2025 (1 h 2 min, about 11,000 words). It mentions 10 people, works and ideas, including Egyptologist, Artificial Intelligence, AIA, First Lego League, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: American Association for the Advancement of Science, Egyptologist, First Lego League, Harvard Art Museums
  2. – 30:00: Artificial Intelligence, Egyptologist
  3. – 50:00: Vasa Museum

Notable quotes from "Ask an Archaeologist: Tech Edition"

  • And also, while we're on the slide, I'll just flag that we have a whole page dedicated to First Lego League, which you've probably seen because you're here. And on that page…
    about First Lego League · at
  • Is Andere. She is a science and technology policy fellow through the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Did you know that the American Association for the…
    about American Association for the Advancement of Science · at
  • Awesome. thanks. And next we have Ashley Lemi, who is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. A fun fact about her university is that it has around 23,000 students in total, which that is really.
    about University of Wisconsin Milwaukee · at
  • And finally we have Chris Bots who is the manager of digital assets at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan. A really well-known archaeology museum.…
    about Kelsey Museum of Archaeology · at
  • Hello, I'm Jen Thumb. I'm an Egyptologist and I also work at the Harvard Art Museums which is the art museum on the Harvard University campus where I oversee all of the learning that happens at our museum and I am our.
    about Egyptologist · at
  • That many people have done that and it's huge areas to explore and it's expensive. We've used artificial intelligence to help us narrow down like our research areas like where…
    about Artificial Intelligence · at
  • Ashley, have you ever been to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm Street?
    about Vasa Museum · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

Places & events

Full transcript with timestamps

Hi everyone, welcome. Um, as we're all coming in, feel free to drop in the chat where you are tuning in from, your team name, and how many people are watching with you. Awesome. I see. Oh, we have almost 400 people here. See if we can beat the number for our first webinar. So, if you're just joining, please feel free to pop in the chat with where you're tuning in from, your team name, how many people are watching with you, and we'll get started in just a minute once everybody's had a chance to enter. Awesome. And also, while we're on the slide, I'll just flag that we have a whole page dedicated to First Lego League, which you've probably seen because you're here. And on that page, we have all kinds of resources for you, including a list of common challenges that we have compiled. Um, and uh, a recording from our first webinar where a lot of your questions were answered by a different set of panelists.

Right. So, uh, we'll just get another 10, 20 seconds or so. Feel free to pop in the chat with where you're tuning in from, your team name, and how many people are watching with you.

They're such great names. Yeah, actually, I've been very impressed by team names and like when people have been uh emailing and submitting questions and things like that, they're very creative in and of themselves. All right, everyone. So, um, feel free to scan this code now, visit our Lego League page, and I will pop this slide up later so you will not lose it. Um, maybe actually someone will pop the link in the chat as well. This is Ask an Archaeologist Tech Edition. Um, so this is our second webinar. Please make sure that you um had a chance to head over to the recording of our first webinar where we have answered different and more general questions.

So, just very briefly, what is archaeology in case you're new here? Archaeology is the study of people through the things they left behind. Um, and a lot of the time we think of archaeology as only the study of ancient people, but it can be about more recent people, too. And maybe most importantly is that we are not treasure hunters. We aren't looking to find things. Uh, that's not the reason why we do archaeology. We are researchers and we study what people left behind to learn about their lives. So, everyone here is doing that in many different ways. Um, and that is what we do at the AIA. So, um, we make archaeology happen. Um, and uh, we'll say a little bit more about the AIA um, at the end, but there are so many ways for you to experience archaeology yourself. for example, participating in an excavation yourself or attending a lecture, an archaeology fair. So, um, here we have our panelist. I think we'll

dive right in. Uh, first up on our panel is Andere. She is a science and technology policy fellow through the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Did you know that the American Association for the Advancement of Science has members in more than 91 countries around the world? And what brought you to archaeology? Um, and what is a favorite project or challenge you've tackled in your job or on a field project?

Thanks so much for um having me on this webinar. Um and uh I'm excited to talk about archaeology. Um and I will quickly answer your question. Um but I want to also contextualize so my relationship to um the tech aspect is slightly different than um some of my fellow panelists. So uh in the capacity as a fellow I work at the National Science Foundation um supporting portfolios that have to do with computer science and educ AI education. Um so I have been learning a lot about AI. I am not all knowing about it. Um, and I'm I'm obligated to say I am speaking from my own perspective for this whole webinar and not on behalf of the federal government, the NSF or the tripleas. Um, however, uh, before this kind of career path, I have been an archaeologist for half my life. Um, the thing that most drew me to it was I was just always really interested in history and then became really intrigued by the idea of

like digging up um, history. And of the sites I've worked on, they've all had kind of really interesting challenges. But um, I think the thing I've been thinking of mostly in the context of like tech and computing is um, for my dissertation, I photographed and then had to analyze thousands of um archival documents and that was really fun and like kind of a whole different type of history. But um yeah, I think about if there had been something that was able to analyze and process handwriting for me, I might have written a very different dissertation.

Um so yeah, that's uh that's my contribution for that question. Awesome. Um, thanks. And next we have Ashley Lemi, uh, who is a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. A fun fact about her university is that it has around 23,000 students in total, which that is really big. Ashley, can you tell us what brought you to archaeology and a favorite project or challenge you've tackled in your job or on the field?

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk to everyone. I've been so thrilled like listening to the team names and they're so excited about what they're doing. Um I was the kid that watched the History Channel like constantly like that is what got me into archaeology 100%. Um I was so interested in just like ancient Rome and Egypt and all these amazing places and then I got a chance to do archaeology when I was in college. Um I was just totally hooked and then I got to be on the History Channel. So it's been really fun. It's been like full circle um for me. But in terms of like my favorite, it's fun to say we have favorite challenges.

Challenges are opportunities to grow. Um but I would say my favorite challenge is I've been working on ancient sites that are submerged beneath the Great Lakes. So they're 9,000 years old and they're in over a 100 ft of water. And that's why I'm here today for like tech edition because we use a lot of tech and robotics and AI and sonar to try to find very ancient sites underwater.

That is I'm really excited because we have some underwater related questions that we'll throw to you. Don't worry.

Perfect. Um and finally we have Chris Bots who is the manager of digital assets at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan. A really well-known archaeology museum. The Kelsey Museum holds more than 150,000 artifacts from the ancient world. Chris, same question to you. What brought you to archaeology? And a favorite project or challenge you tackled?

Yeah. So, I'm really excited for this. Um, you know, I love technology and I love archaeology and it's really fun to be able to talk about both of them together. So, I think what brought me into archaeology basically, I think people are fascinating. I think human culture is fascinating. Um, and you know, when I was in school, I really liked a lot of different subjects, and this is a field where I get to tie a lot of them together. You know, there's history, there's art, there's science, um, I'm working with computers, you know, there's math, uh, pretty much any subject you can find a connection to to archaeology. So, it's a lot of fun there. in terms of challenges. Um you know what I one of the things that I do is I try to make sense of huge amounts of information. Um so you know one example of that um I was working with a team at at Pompei to make sense of all of the data that we gathered from um

about seven years of excavation. So there are hundreds of thousands of objects, millions of of individual pieces of of data, and it took another seven years to analyze it and try to understand the history of that neighborhood. So that's sort of a a snippet of of what we do.

Wow. And you know, I think that's like a common misconception about archaeology is that we're always digging, but like you have to do something with the stuff and the information. And so there's actually so much work, usually way more time spent on analyzing and and dealing with that material, but then also publishing it. I mean, we'll get into that a little later, too. Um, and I also want to shout out to our other AIA friends who are helping us on the back end. So you'll see some of them in the chat to answer some uh other questions.

But this webinar is going to focus on your presubmitted questions that have to do with archaeology and technology, AI and robotics, underwater archaeology. So that is where we are going to focus um and don't forget that we have that first webinar with um some of your other more general questions. And uh I forgot to introduce myself. Hello, I'm Jen Thumb. I'm an Egyptologist and I also work at the Harvard Art Museums which is the art museum on the Harvard University campus where I oversee all of the learning that happens at our museum and I am I am our Egyptologist. So that's me and we're going to turn to some of those questions that you asked uh in advance and we'll start with you uh Ashley. What is the most common tool most archaeologists use and what is the tool that you personally have used the most? Okay. So, most common tool, I'm gonna say it is a trail, right? So, archaeologists are really

good at borrowing. He's holding one up. Oh, perfect. Chris has got one. Fabulous. Can we tell?

Um, archaeologists are really good at borrowing things from other sciences and other jobs and other disciplines. So, TRS are often used for like brick laying but and gardening, but they're perfect for excavating. So, it's like the standard tool that worldwide archaeologists all over use. They'll have like little modifications in different parts of the world, which is fun. Um, but for me, I I use TRS all the time, but I actually use a robot the most. So, in researching underwater, you as a diver can only be underwater for so long. So, it's really good for us to use underwater robots because they can see what's on the ground. They can check out the archaeological site first. They can map everything. They can take photos of everything. You can get videos of everything. And so robots is actually what I use more than anything in terms of a tool.

That's pretty cool. I feel like it's probably unique answer, but I just want to see if Chris or Ann wants to chime in for this question as well.

For me, I'd say my most common tool is my laptop. Oh, say more about that. Yeah.

Because of all the data you're processing. Yeah. I'm constantly, you know, working with with data, um, processing 3D models, um, just all kinds of things. That's most of the time when I'm in the field. I'm actually spending it on my laptop. Yeah.

Pretty cool. And, anything you want to add? I know you probably use a tri a lot.

Um, yeah. I will say I feel like Greece is weirdly unique. We We use TRS, but we prefer small hand picks.

Okay. Um, we use these like triangle trolls though, which I don't have a visual aid to show unfortunately. But yeah, I would say personally, uh, mine would be camera and my computer though for archival, um, research. I just kind of the history of archaeology and the history of how archaeologists have done things and how that relates to their interpretations and research questions and methods. So, yeah.

Awesome. We had a common question um about some of the tools that uh archaeologists use to locate items underground without digging. Um and maybe we could say like tools and methods, I guess. Um and I know Ashley, we were talking earlier, you said something about sonar. You want to start there?

Yeah. So archaeology is a destructive science. That's like one good thing to start with, too. So once you excavate a site, you can't go back and excavate it again. So we're really careful about excavating and where we dig and why we dig and make sure we have a good reason to do it. So there's tons of tools for us before we ever excavate, before you ever dig into the ground. Um, I use sonar quite a bit. So it creates images kind of like photography, but photography uses light to take pictures. Sonar uses sound to take pictures. So, if you all know like echolocation that dolphins use where they use sound and then it pings off and it tells them where fish are, it's kind of the similar thing. We use sonar to map the ocean floor and the lake bed to see if there's shipwrecks or if there's ancient sites or temples or cities or things like that. So, we get a really good picture of what's going on on the surface before

we ever start excavating. Very cool. And I know I guess well if you're thinking about like locating items um even photography is something that we would use aerial photography which can be from satellite images or

we used to just we used to do with balloons or airplanes sometimes we still do. Um so something that might seem like kind of simple or as someone said earlier like a tool borrowed from another thing um is used in archaeology in this way. Um, we had a lot of questions about other we call them I guess like noninvasive um tools in archaeology and technology specifically. Um, Chris, can you tell us a little bit about what liar is um and if you've ever used it in your

Yeah, so um LiDAR is basically uh so it stands for light detection and ranging. Um it's a you know very long acronym there but basically it's lasers. Everybody loves lasers. Um so, you know, shooting lasers out of um sometimes it's coming from a plane, sometimes it's um you know, something on a tripod on the ground. Um and basically the laser goes out and then it hits something and the light gets reflected back in. And that that tool measures the amount of time that it takes for the laser to go out and come back. And that tells you basically how far it is from there to where the laser hit. Um, you do that, you know, shoot a bunch of lasers all over, get a bunch of points, and that gives you sort of a map, a threedimensional map of um, what is sort of in front of of this device. So, you can attach it to um, you know, a drone to a plane and get um, you know, fly back and forth over over the landscape

or over a site and get a map of an entire an entire site, entire landscape. Um but you can also um actually some iPads and iPhones u actually have a teeny tiny little LAR uh module built into them and we use this on our sites to um actually create 3D models very very quickly of the the trenches that we're excavating.

Very cool. And I have actually another question for you about a different acronym or different abbreviation technology which is GPR, ground penetrating radar. Uh can you talk a little bit about that? How often is it used? Have you ever used it? Pros and cons. Does it work in wet environments? A few people wanted to know.

Yeah, so it's it's used fairly um pretty commonly. Um, you know, there are several different tools that people can use to try to get some sort of a glimpse of what's um buried, you know, in in sediment. Um, you can use magnetometry, which is basically measuring sort of differences in magnetic fields from buried stuff. Um, electrical resistance, which is sort of similar, but measuring differences in in how electricity passes through. Um, and then you can use ground penetrating radar, which is sort of a similar idea to sonar, um, where you're sort of shooting out pulses of electromagnetic energy, but it instead of that traveling through water, it's traveling through the ground. So, it goes into the ground, um, it hits something, it bounces back. Um, and you sort of measure the the amount of time and the amount of energy that comes back and get a sense of what's under there.

Um, it's it's not perfect. uh you know the the results that you get um you tend to get a lot of blobs and so there's a lot of interpreting of those blobs. Um so you know if you've ever had an X-ray um I broke my wrist several years ago and I had to get an X-ray and on that X-ray you could see very clearly you know the outline of my hand and and my wrist and you could see very clearly the bones of the little break in there. Um you could see everything very very clearly. That's not what we get from from these techniques. Um, I wish it were, but it's it's nothing, you know, that that clear. And certain types of soils, you know, sandy things don't always work. Um, so, you know, some sites that I've worked on, um, you get decent results. Other sites, you can't really tell much at all.

Since you work in wet environments, I don't know if you want to weigh in on this at all with GPR. um up to you. But I I just Chris reminded me of something that I want to mention which is another technology related to or another way we use technology in archaeology. But Ashley just want to make sure that you're good with GPR. Okay. So Chris's answer reminded me of the fact that we actually do use X-rays and CAT scans for artifacts in museums. So we, for example, at our museum have um uh Egyptian objects where we now know there is a mummified animal inside the sculpture. And we know that because we've x-rayed it. Um and those are all those are non-invasive technologies that come from medicine that we use so that we don't um as as Ashley said, it's a destructive process so that we don't damage the artifact, but we can tell a little bit more about it by seeing the inside in the same way that you would

see your bones inside. Um, so I have to and actually uh maybe this is kind of the flip side of that. Chris, can you say a little bit about 3D scanners in archaeology?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, I mean much of of our work because we're dealing very often with things and places and buildings, much of our work is inherently three-dimensional. Um, and so it can be really really useful to be able to capture things in three dimensions and be able, you know, turn them around, see them from different angles and then also share those models with with other people. Um, you know, whether that's looking at it when we're not in the field or sharing it with colleagues who might be at a different site um or sharing it with students u webinars like this. So, you know, we can we can create 3D models of of whole landscapes, whole sites, you know, using things like LAR. Um, and there are techniques to basically use a camera to do the same kinds of things. And there are apps that you can download for your phone um that can actually, you know, do do something sort of similar to to this

stuff. Um, and I actually have some examples here. Oh, amazing. We've done this. Yeah, we've um so this is a a fiance little figurine here.

Yeah. Oh, it's an Anubis. It's in Yep. We've got a little Anubis. Let me get a little closer there.

Yeah. So, this little guy is about 2,000 years old. He's teeny tiny. And uh we use that that technique um with cameras to create a 3D model of that. And then we can actually 3D print it at various scales, including blowing and mop.

Oh my gosh. So, you know, this is a a little tool that we can use to, you know, people can handle it. um we can we can uh you know turn around the the object uh so there's all kinds of things you can do for documenting and actually analyzing um things at different scales using 3D scanning.

You've just reminded me that I have two 3D prints of ancient objects right here. We can have a contest. This is an ushabi aer figurine. And look, it's even got the detail of the inscription. This was made by my colleague Peter Dmanuelian who's another Egyptologist here at Harvard. All of the artifacts in the museum that he oversees, which is the Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East, are um when when they do 3D models, they're on a sketch fab for the museum. And the other is a little Greek vessel. And this one's for you, an animal-shaped vessel from an exhibition that we did.

Um Ann, I want to make sure to ask you some questions. So, I might uh change topic a little bit if that's okay with everybody. Um, and let's talk a little bit about AI if that sounds good. Um, and what role do you think AI could play in archaeology in the future?

Um, yeah, this is a big question and like in the general theme and kind of just like occurred to me while Chris and Ashley were talking too. I think something that's interesting and maybe important for people to understand is kind of thinking about the history of technology and archaeology. It's not these are not all things that have like all of a sudden just happened in the past 10 years. So something like having being able to lighter something on your iPad like that is new and that is a big um that's a big deal. But um one of the excavations I looked at for my for my research in the 1970s was using um resistivity survey to like determine where they were digging. So some of this stuff has been um you know archaeologists kind of always been innovating and in terms of AI um and this is something the other panelists might have views on as well or use it even you know I'm not like currently

using AI and archaeology but I think my kind of suspicion is at least in the immediate future there's going to be more uses for more kind of analytical um AI models versus say generative um with generative stuff I think the hallucination problem um is perhaps too much right or it would be such that it wouldn't really be saving anyone time um and I think in particular though um somewhere where it might be useful is as I've mentioned my research is kind of the history of archaeology so I look at archives almost as archaeological artifacts. Um, and so these are notebooks, letters. Um, right, you think about Ashley talked about how archaeology is destructive. Um, you can't redo the experiment once you've dug something up. And so the history of archaeology is tied to having these like really secure recording methods and all of that is just put into an archive right when the data is over. And um,

this produces its own massive amount of data. Um and there are being tools kind of pioneered now within the context of archives to be able to produce metadata and just like things at a scale that like um humans might not be able to. The key is they have to be scanned um which we haven't even gotten to that step in a lot of archives. But um

maybe robot. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Um well on the archive has to okay things being scanned and yeah but um yeah so that's but yeah I just think anything um I was just saw a talk a few weeks ago about some people might be familiar with the um the Hercuanium pipe project um and how AI analytical AI was used to basically reconstruct some of that text. Um,

wow. And so things like that, um, where you're you're feeding information that already exists, but like you're just having it being outsourced to something that can kind of like analyze it in a way, um, that just like humans maybe can't um, or can't in a certain amount of time.

I'll throw this question out to Kristen Ashley, too. Like, are you currently using AI or a project you're working on? Are you using AI or someone on the project using AI? And uh also what role do you think it could play in archaeology in the future?

I'm Yeah, I'm like nodding fiercely in the back. Um so it's gonna it's kind of like a weird application of it, but because underwater archaeology of like ancient landscapes is so new, like not that many people have done that and it's huge areas to explore and it's expensive. We've used artificial intelligence to help us narrow down like our research areas like where are we going to look? So specifically, I study caribou hunters, ancient caribou hunters, and we have a virtual world. We kind of roll back the clock and say, "This is what it looked like 9,000 years ago." And then there's artificial intelligence caribou that migrate across that landscape. And then that helps us predict where ancient hunters might have hunted those caribou. So AI can run like thousands and thousands and thousands of migrations and it can show us where the animals were most likely to go. So the animals are there. it's likely the

people are going to be there that we're hunting them. So we use artificial intelligence that way. Um but folks, colleagues of mine are also using artificial intelligence to process sonar data to look for shipwrecks. So like Ann said, right, there's like it takes just people so much time to process so much data that you can train AI to be like find stuff that looks like this. So you show it what shipwrecks look like and then it can process a lot of data very quickly and pick out things that look strange. It works for shipwrecks. It wouldn't work for everything. So like I've told people like there's not ever it's never going to replace anybody.

Like we're always going to have to have boots on the ground as archaeologists. But I think it's going to make us maybe more effective like effective and efficient like help us narrow down search areas.

Chris, same question to you. Yeah, I mean I think there's a lot of things that that it could be used for. um you know some of the sort of repetitive tasks of just um doing basic identifications of certain you know types of objects um where you know currently either you need to just have a mental library of all of these different possible shapes and and you know decorative types of pottery um or have you know a whole arsenal of of reference books with you. Um you know that still takes a lot of time to go through thousands of pieces of pottery. Um and so you know maybe that might be some way that we can um you know leverage AI on that. Um but then coming back to sort of some of the stuff that Ann was talking about with um archives. So at at the museum where I work um you know we've been sponsoring excavations for over a hundred years. And so there are sites that were excavated in the 19 you know

20s um that have either been rearied or have been damaged since then. And it would be really great to be able to 3D model some of them. You know, we have some photos of them, but only maybe a couple, you know, of each building. And using those methods that I was talking about before where you take a bunch of photos and create a 3D model, you need a lot of photos from lots of different angles. So maybe AI can fill in some of those gaps. You know, take just a few photos and and you know, fill in some of those missing pieces. And I think generally archaeologists have lots of missing pieces. you know, we have very incomplete sets of information and so that might be a way that AI can help.

Speaking of missing pieces, this reminds me of a project that a colleague of mine is working on with AI here at our museum in I think it was the 1980s. Um, some of the coins in the collection here, ancient coins were stolen. and she and a student are using AI to mine the art market, like mine the internet to see if she can find some of the missing coins. Now, why is that a little harder to do with coins? Because a coin is replicated many times. There are many um copies of the same coin. You know, you can find two of the same quarter maybe in your pocket right now if you're in the US.

So, um, that's a challenge, but identifying where if they are being sold, if that type of coin is being sold is one of the ways that she and the student are using AI. And that is like I mean, I can't even wrap my head around what it would be like to do try to do that manually. So, this is like her um a fun effort to see if it works, I guess. And um and what what's there to lose, basically. Um, let's talk a little bit more about data actually, and this is an open question for anyone. I know Chris, you have a little bit to say about this already, so we can start with you if you like. Um, is there a common database or software or program for archaeologists to save information? Like, do different digs, databases talk to each other? Are there ones that are more popular? Um, how do we share information with other archaeologists? Things like that.

Yes, I'm happy to to start off with this one. Um, no, there is not one there is not one database out there. You know, there are some that are more popular. Um, there's maybe half a dozen um really popular ones um you know, ways of of organizing data, but um archaeologists really like to customize things. Um, and you know, some of that is just the the quirks of our personalities, but also, you know, we're we're dealing in lots of different time periods. We're dealing with lots of different cultures. Um, you know, lots of different, uh, research methods, research questions, um, people working in different, you know, states, countries, um, languages. Um, you know, some some countries and states have their own requirements that that sort of, um, point you or force you to use a particular method. Um, and so it's really hard to, you know, try to find one thing that that sort of fits everybody. Um, and there are some ways

that we can get data to talk to each other. It gets it gets pretty technical pretty quickly there. Um, and it is tricky, but uh, there are some ways to sort of get one database to talk to something that's completely different, but it's hard.

Anyone else having Oh, please. Maybe I was just gonna It's not like database. is kind of a broad word, but like GIS, so geographic information systems, I would say, is one of the ones that a lot of people use.

That's such a good point. I didn't even think about that. I know. I didn't even know Chris was talking.

Yeah. What GIS is and and how we use it. Can you say? Yeah. So, GIS is geographic information systems. It's like a broad category of um computer programs that help you organize spatial data. So, archaeologists love maps is like the short version. Um, we have a lot of spatial data like where the artifacts were when we excavated them, where they are on the planet, where they are in relation to each other. So, that's the one that that's like it's not the same. Everyone each project makes their own map and their own GIS database for their own project, but that's one like as a tool, as a class of tools. A lot of archaeologists use that.

I can't believe I didn't think of that either. Yeah, the like database question is interesting and I I used to think a lot about this in terms of just like the kind of trajectory. So I worked at an excavation in Greece and agar at the time this program I dig um which was like all recording on iPads is being rolled out and um there was a lot of resistance um kind of one of the goals is trying to get other sites to adopt it and there was a lot of resistance and I think you know Chris spoke to this and Ashley a little bit there's this like desire to individualize everyone wants to create their best database system right for their site because their site we excavate like this and like this is um and I think it comes out of this kind of you know history having to deal with recording being super important but um an issue that will come up and has already come up with digital recording at least is preservation of digital

databases um I've worked on excavations with people who've worked in certain parts of the world um someone was telling me about this dig in like early 2000s in Serbia where it was all digital and like stuff isn't accessible anymore because no one maintains the kind of um database platform. So this is kind of um use of databases is also important for thinking of kind of futurep proofing I guess in a way and why so many sites at least in Greece still want to still do the paper recording as well um in some form which of course creates even more records and stuff you have to store and manage and what have you. But um

and you you know Ann and it's a great point because this happens in museums too and I'm sure Crystal has said this that like we at our museum we have digital some digital records but primarily we're working on paper and we're kind of hesitant to digitize things and it's because of like the concerns about how will we make sure that people still access to that information and there are some just as there is with like seeing an artifact in its context and seeing an artifact mater what we would call the materiality the materialness of it. Um, it gives you more information. That can happen with keeper records as well. Um, you know, if someone drew a a drawing of something and then erased it and you can see that they made a mistake, maybe there's some information there about why they interpreted something differently before they erased it and changed their mind.

Or um, maybe the handwriting will tell you that it was two different people writing in the same notebook about the same thing. There are so many more like kind of human things behind the physical characteristics of what we do on site like the artifacts of an excavation um and excav and artifacts themselves. You know we had a lot of questions about like how we communicate and connect in the field. I wonder if you can um tackle some of those. So um what for example is the biggest issue with using technology in remote places? Um Ashley, you're making a face. You want to say something about that?

to always update the software. That sounds so silly, but that's such a real thing. So, I have been on like offshore, like offshore, like a 100 miles offshore on research boats and you don't always have internet like sometimes you do. Depends on the research vessel. Um, but to make sure everything's updated because everything can be working, but all of the hardware might be working, right? like the the robot itself, but if the software isn't updated and you don't have internet access to be able to get that update, like then you can't work.

And we always laugh like there isn't like a Home Depot buoy like 50 miles off, you know what I mean? There's like nowhere to go. So, in terms of challenges working in remote places, archaeologists are really good at like checklist, like packing list and like checklist and you take like four of everything because you know what I mean? like if one is good like two is better kind of situation like everything with like batteries like PVC like you know bungee cords like things that you just not sure you'll be able to get I would say is the biggest thing like being prepared we're like prepared for the worst like hoping for the best basically when we go to the field

great mantra for an archaeological project um yeah and you're reminding me of like I don't know some of the other ways that we might even like charge things in the field you know like if you plug things in. Does anybody here use solar panels when they're in the field?

I haven't, but that makes a ton of sense. I've used like a little traveling one just to keep like my phone charged in the field, especially if it's sunny. It'll work. Um, but I'm not aware of any of any digs like really using solar panels as like a main source of electricity,

which is bonkers because we usually are working in really hot, sunny areas like, you know what I mean? And like I travel one that attached to your backpack. So I don't know maybe this is a place for innovation for our challenge. Uh um and does anyone want to comment on whether or not electronics that we use on site are affected by dust and heat?

So you've got them. They're working. But yeah, Chris, yes, they absolutely are. Um just like we are affected by dust and heat, so are they. Um you know, that's one of the great things about the iPad. Um you know, that that sort of revolutionized our ability to use um computers and tablets in the field is that they don't have a fan. Um you know, if you're using a a traditional computer, the way that it cools itself is by pulling in colder air from outside inside the computer. And if that air is dusty, that gets real bad real fast. Um, and so yeah, you know, different, you know, technologies that don't need to be cooled by a fan, um, are really important. If if an iPad gets dusty, we could wipe it off. It's fine.

Um, but you do have to be careful. You know, don't leave it out in the sun. Um, you know, we have to be careful to store them in the shade. Um, and yeah, if it's 90° outside, um, that limits, you know, the amount of sort of really intensive processing that that a device can do. um you know if it's um you know analyzing various kinds of data um sometimes they do sort of overheat and and you have to you know pause for an hour or two to let it cool down so it can be it can be a struggle sometimes

although I guess that doesn't mean that like the excavation work has to stop but maybe things get delayed I guess um so different challenges in terms of like timing or

it's like cold too oh that's fair my iPhone stops working when it's really cold So

yeah, we think of it being really hot, but we use like GoPros underwater to film. And in the Great Lakes, it's like 35 on the bottom and the batteries drain really fast. And in that scenario, like you can't do anything if you're if the goal, if the mission is to take pictures and the battery is dead, you know, you have to put another one in. Like you have to go all the way back up to the boat, get another one, come all the way back down.

Yeah. Ashley, you've actually anticipated one of the questions that someone had submitted ahead of time, which is whether or not you use cameras underwater. So you use GoPro.

Oh, good. Yes. Any other cameras that you use under? Um, yeah. So, actually 360 cameras are the best. Um, or that's what a lot of archaeologists have been using lately. It gives you this really neat kind of like fisheye view of what's going on and it sees more than you do. So, when you're diving or you have it attached to the robot, like it's seeing the different angles and different corners of things than you can. Um, GoPros, like I said, they've been working great, but like in cold water, their batteries run out really fast. um pressure underwater can hit the buttons like the cases will shrink and not shrink and so it'll turn it off when you're trying to record to make like a 3D video or something like that. Um so we yeah we use a ton of cameras underwater. Our biggest like challenge in that would be lighting usually.

Um in some places you have really good visibility and good lighting but in others you don't. So, you have to have not just the camera, but like a lighting apparatus to make sure that you're seeing like the archaeological site as good as you can,

right? You know, this again hasn't even occurred to me because I've always worked on and in very dry places, I'll say as well.

Solar power. Yeah, you're you need a different light source. Um, yeah, people wanted to know what the tennis challenge is for underwater archaeologists and that sounds like a pretty tough challenge. Um, and I just want to take a minute to remind everybody that we do have a Q&A box. that is where you should put other questions, but we are answering questions live verbally that were presubmitted. There were hundreds of them, so we're not answering every question, but we're answering the most common ones. And then we have some of our friends from the AIA staff uh on the back end, um answering other questions if they can. So, um thank you for your patience. All right, so uh let's talk a little bit about preservations. Come up a few times. Um we're going to talk about preservation of artifacts but also sites. So let's um with objects.

How is technology used to preserve artifacts or you could take the word preserve very broadly?

Yeah. So I can I can speak to this. Um so this is something that you know working at a a museum um I work very closely with our conservators who are responsible for conserving or or basically protecting um and preserving the artifacts. Um and they use all kinds of of technology. Um there's something called X-ray fluoresence or XRF um which sort of like the lasers. It goes pew pew at at these these objects. um you know shoots X-rays at them and um it basically tells you what they are made of um sort of what um you know what elements are are in that area that just got zapped. Um and so they use that information um to basically see what an object is made out of to make sure that they're going to use the right techniques to to preserve them. um they use you know manual techniques um you know applying certain glues but then they have to know what kind of glue is is appropriate or they might um you know

apply some solution to sort of reverse a particular type of damage. Well, then they need to know exactly what is going on chemically with that that spot on that object um in order to know the right stuff to use um so that they don't do more damage, but they also are able to reverse um any any damage or prevent any future damage. Uh but we can also use you know 3D models to um you know basically use the the model to create to 3D print like a support for an object. um you can use it to um as sort of a substitute. If there's an object that is particularly delicate, we might create a 3D model that people can actually use to do research so that instead of handling that object, they're actually working with the 3D model. Um so there's all different kinds of ways that we can use technology for for preserving those artifacts.

So think you hit on all the main ones that are like archaeological science um uh conservation science like gotos. Um we did have some specific questions about preserving different kinds of materials specifically. So um just generally technology ne not necessarily is the the main uh kind of idea but what do archaeologists use to preserve organic materials such as wood? And what about other materials like metals like bronze for example?

I can do wood. Go ahead talk about like I don't know bronze. I'm a prehistorian. So uh for wood at least wood when it's found underwater. Um the best place for artifacts is actually to stay underwater. So what we say as underwater archaeologists is the best thing is to leave it in place. we just take maybe small samples up to the surface because water is really good at preserving organic materials like wood and plants like these sorts of things. But if you bring it up, there's a couple different technologies that you can use. Um freeze drying is something that archaeologists use to have the wood. That way it preserves like the original shape of the piece of wood if it's part of a shipwreck or maybe just a natural tree.

And then the other thing which is kind of crazy, we slowly inject it with polyethylene glycol. So PEG is what it's called. It's like peg treatment. So you basically slowly slowly remove the water from the wood and then you replace that with plastic basically to then retain the shape and then it will preserve for longer. So, it's interesting like we always think of excavating and like recovering artifacts, but like Chris said like and Ann too like the conservation of artifacts once they're removed from either the dirt or the water is a really long very complicated technical process and it create it's a lot of skill that's needed to do that.

Like there aren't thousands of archaeologists running around that are conservators that know how to do that kind of work. Ashley, have you ever been to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm Street?

I haven't. I want to go so bad. Ann's been there. I've been there. Chris, I don't know if you can there. It is a giant ship that they built a museum around because they saved it from it's it was basically wrecked for like 400 years, a little less than 400 years. And they uh brought it up. They did the soaking out of the salts and the replacement with the plastic and all this stuff. Egg. Now I learned something new today. And then they built the museum around it and you can see the boat like it looks like it was made yesterday. It's so crazy. But that took decades of work. Um and and just because someone asked about other materials like you know what the opposite of wood like something like bronze. They can those materials can actually be equally fragile when exposed to a new environment. If it's survived this long part of the reason why same as wood is because it's been in a stable environment. bronze can actually get

something called bronze disease. That's our word for it. I don't know what it's called technically. There's a scientific term for it, I'm sure, but archae Well, bronze disease. Um, and uh it it is um where you um you basically see the metal fall apart in front of you because it's been um exposed to too much oxygen or different temperature changes and of dust. Um so every material has its own um special needs in terms of preservation and um science is what helps us understand what those needs are. All right. So let's talk a little bit about preservation of sites. Um oh actually I've got a question for you an first um just on the uh relating to like finding materials and how we deal with them. Um which is uh several people wanted to know about what dry siving, wet siv and flotation are. and if you have any challenges with those methods.

Yeah, so these are all important things for archaeological fieldwork. They are not very exciting maybe to people who are not archaeologists but um they do present challenges. So I think it's important to go over them. So, um I guess to start dry siving is most commonly done on site. Um and basically, right, you're digging up dirt. Um and you pull out the things you can see, right? You can easily see like large pieces of pottery or bone or what have you. Um, but there's some smaller stuff you might miss right in your scoop full of dirt like coins or beads or really small pieces of pottery. Um, so what you do is after you have your collection of dirt in whatever vessel, you dump it on um a large metal screen and then you sit there and shake it um and go through and pick out basically any small artifacts.

Um so that's dry s. Um and then you have to kind of constantly be moving the dirt out from underneath the civ, right? Um, wet siv I've done less commonly on sites. Um, kind of the same idea, but you're applying water um to kind of help identify and move the dirt. Um, flotation is very common and also very important um in archaeology. So, basically archaeologists um right as we said at the beginning are studying the human past. Um, one of the things that's important for the human past is like what people were eating. Um, what sorts of things, um, uh, you know, are they, uh, something like change of diet could have, you know, different social like implications.

So, um, a lot of times, right, we're not, you're not going to excavate something that has like a fully cooked meal, right, that's not happen preserved. So, um, the things that do preserve an inorganic materials are often very small and very light. And the way you get this stuff is through flotation. Um, and the way I've done it, it's kind of hard to describe without a visual, but I'm sure you can Google archaeology flotation and like find a video. There's a big tank. Um, you put mesh in it. you take a certain amount of dirt um from what you're excavating, you have to I've done flotation offsite. So, this involves transporting large bags of dirt um to wherever your flotation tank is.

Um and you dump in your dirt. The tank's being filled with water and then a pump is kind of moving the water around. So on the top mesh, you're catching what we call heavy residue. So these are the types of things you might also find in dry siving. Maybe you just like didn't have time to dry sip everything or like didn't catch everything. So you'll have like really small um pottery, other types of things. I worked on an excavation where we found a bunch of beads um and then while the water is being moved around um the organic material is lighter than the dirt, right? So dirt sinks to the bottom, organic residue rises up and is kind of siphoned off onto basically something like a cheesecloth.

Um, and then that is separately dried out and analyzed by people who have expertise in kind of looking at some of these organic remains. Um, so yeah, it's a it's a movement of uh dirt problem. It's a um or challenge. I guess it's not a problem challenge opportunity. Um, it's a kind of storage issue as well. Um, for all of this stuff, a site I worked on before never got through all the flotation samples they took. Um, so sometimes the team would have to go back in like October, um, which like, oh no, trip to Noxus in October. Um, to be clear, I wasn't involved in this, but other members of the team and like finish the flotation samples. Um, so yeah, it's definitely um definitely a challenge but also super important and a lot of people do it on sites now um on their excavation.

I just want to be mindful of the time and once again we have a first webinar that is recorded where we answered a lot of the questions that I'm seeing pop up in the Q&A box. So you should go back and watch that webinar. And also, just a reminder, we are only answering questions that were submitted ahead of time, but our friends in the back end might be able to get to some of your other questions. I've got a couple more I think we could squeeze in, guys. Um, how do you protect sites from natural disasters? Chris, you want to go for this one?

Sure. I mean, natural disasters are extremely powerful and there's not a whole lot you can do. Um, you know, we just thinking of of you know, places where people live. You know, we do our best to um, you know, build houses and build modern buildings in order to withstand, you know, certain natural disasters, but that even that doesn't work all the time. Um, and imagine trying to do that for something that was built 2,000 years ago. Um, you know, there there's not a ton that we can do. Um, you know, we we try not to alter ancient remains too much. Uh and so we can't exactly just you know completely surround you know the coliseum in you know thick scaffolding um because then you know nobody would be able to see it.

We wouldn't be able to learn anything from it. Um and you know Ashley was talking um uh just a minute ago about you know how important it is to keep water logged remains uh wet and how that basically helps keep them them preserved. um you know unfortunately um due to climate change at a a site called Vindelanda in in northern England that has famous um amazing uh you know ancient remains organic remains like shoes, leather shoes.

I was going to say I know it for the shoes. That's how I know and that's all that's all preserved. Um because it's wet and it has stayed wet. Um, you know, there's unfortunately some evidence that due to climate change, the water table is changing and fluctuating and some of those remains are starting to get um, you know, dried out periodically and then um, wet again and that that change actually starts to break them down and it it over time um those amazing remains won't necessarily survive. Um, and so basically the best thing that we can do is try to prevent some of these natural disasters as best we can. um you know, big storms, wildfires, um you know, flooding, sea level rise, those are all threats to to archaeological remains. Um and so, you know, we we basically the only thing we can do is try to to lessen the impact of those or or prevent them.

Um, some of our other questions about like preservation and protection relating to like how do we protect sites from looting and vandalism and other things. It's not just natural disasters that are sort of we're sort of up against. And I also had all these other questions about robots that um we I know we actually talked a little bit about robots, but it's just occurred to me that like could use a robot to surveil a site overnight to make sure that it's protected, something like that. Um, so just to sort of, um, get us a little more into a robot robot mode for our last question or two. Um, that's one way I can think of robots being used in archaeology. And Ashley already talked about, um, ways that she is using robots. Any other ways that you feel there could be an intersection between robotics and archaeology? This is a question for Annie.

Yeah. Yeah, I think the underwater, you know, like getting into tricky places. So, one of the other places we've talked about using robotics is um sinkholes in Mexico and in many parts of the world, but like there's underwater things in sinkholes. And so, it's not the easiest place to get like a scuba diver or something like that. Um so, doing robotics. Um I joke around all the time I really want to start a project um off the coast of South Africa because there's a lot of archaeological sites underwater there, but it's also where great white sharks hang out.

Oh, so safety by robot. It's a safety situation where I was like the robot can go first and then we can see what happens afterwards. Um, so those are a couple of ways that we've done it. A lot of people are asking like we don't have robots right now that have like surgical precision. So like excavate like that's as far as I'm aware. Um, there are some that can go and retrieve artifacts for sure. Um, but we don't we're not at the level where it's like going to replace someone that's going down and like carefully removing the artifacts and excavating it that way.

And and also just again to like bring the human back into it. I I know at least when I'm excavating like so much of understanding what what is in front of you is by feel and and by very human senses of sight even smell, texture, things that you know could be interpreted by a very sophisticated robot. But there is just so much of like experience and knowledge from just knowing what things feel like in the ground, maybe also underwater, I don't know. um that you know I I feel like you would need to really figure out how to how to do that so that we don't we don't lose that extra information that really comes from our as people.

So in our last um minute or so I want to throw this question out to everyone. What advice would you give kids interested in archaeology? Ann, you want to go first? Um, yeah. I mean, there's uh I don't know. I guess I'm maybe not the I'm not employed in archaeology right now, so I'm the best person, but yeah. Um, yeah, I think it it is something where, right, you're not in like a um kind of earlier education environment. You're not like you're not taking an archaeology class, but it's integrated in so many things. As Chris said earlier, archaeology comes up with like all the, you know, involves all these different um aspects of history, science, so on. So, um there are like ways that a lot of K12 educators um can incorporate archaeology in their teaching. And so, um that is I think important. And I think at the college level, yeah, it's um maybe more tangible in a way that you can take classes and

connect with um excavation opportunities and that kind of thing. Um but yeah, I think it um that is the kind of like I think advantage though of that it connects with so many different types of of topics and um in that way to connect with it in in a in a specific way that like speaks to you and your background, right? Um

like don't forget your special skills. There's always need for, for example, someone who really loves pottery, someone who really loves bones. Chris, you want to answer next advice for kids interested in archaeology in 30 seconds or less?

Yeah, I would just say learn as much as you can about as many different things as you can. Um, yeah, archaeology touches on so many things and you never know what little tidbit of information um your brain is going to pull out that you learned 10 years ago that will be suddenly be relevant again. including long uh like languages you studied a long time ago that suddenly you need. Ashley, how would you answer this question?

Um you guys are already doing it because you're in this challenge. So I think this is super cool, right? To get involved in things like this where you're learning more about, you know, the technology side of things and the archaeology side of things. And if you're interested in it, like people always ask like, "Haven't we found everything already?" I'm like, "We have not. There's going to be job security for archaeologists for a long time. We've just barely scratched the surface about what to find. So, good luck with the challenge. Um, this is my Lego robot diver that wants to say hello and good luck. Also, she's also 3D printed. Um, but yeah, I would just say maintain your curiosity about the world around you and archaeology is a great way to do that.

What a fantastic prop for this. Well, um, let me just remind everyone that we have a whole resource page for first Lego challenge and on that page you can find the recording of the first webinar and you will also find the recording of this webinar uh, and a whole list of challenges that uh, AIA member archaeologists thought were common challenges that we'd love to have you tackle. Um, and there's some other information on there too, other resources from the AIA and other partners. I also want to mention that we do have two uh publication uh offers at the moment. If you're in the US and you can get paper uh um uh magazine shipped to you, we have a bundle of archaeology magazine and an archaeology 101 handout.

And if you're not in the US or you don't love print materials, never fear. You can also get digital access to all of archaeology going back almost a hundred years. Um, and we have AIA student memberships with access to our whole archive. So, you can check that out too at archaeological.orgjoin. And last thing, until mid October, we also have a new challenge for you that is open uh for you to submit to. It's um open to anyone. They don't have to be AA members. Create your favorite monument or site with your favorite building bricks. They can be any kind of bricks, but maybe they'll be Legos.

Um, and the winner gets a one-year AIA membership. So, uh, visit us, uh, online and, uh, we really look forward to seeing what you all come up with, uh, is, uh, your projects for this challenge. Thanks for joining us. And thank you to all of our panelists and to our friends from the AIA on the back end who've been heroically answering questions throughout the hour. Thank you everyone.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Ask an Archaeologist: Tech Edition"?

In order: 0:00 American Association for the Advancement of Science, Egyptologist, First Lego League, Harvard Art Museums; 20:00 Artificial Intelligence, Egyptologist; 40:00 Vasa Museum.

What is mentioned in this ArchaeologyTV episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Egyptologist, Artificial Intelligence, AIA, First Lego League, American Association for the Advancement of Science, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Ask an Archaeologist: Tech Edition"?

The episode runs 1 h 2 min; the transcript is about 11,000 words in 109 timestamped sections.

More from ArchaeologyTV

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.