This article presents an innovative workflow for the acquisition and storage of archaeological data. The system is based on open-source software to enhance method replication and media accessibility. QGIS software is used as the central platform, connected to a spatial database developed in PostgreSQL and managed with the SQL and Python programming languages. The aim is to achieve an efficient, flexible, and reproducible digital method for data collection and management that can be applied to surface archaeological surveys. During the implementation and development of the method, we have recorded over 4,600 archaeological remains in two different structures with traces of Upper Paleolithic activity in the Lower Gallery of La Garma (Cantabria, Spain). After 18 months of continuous work, the results obtained demonstrate the usefulness and versatility of this procedure, which can be adapted to each context and to the specific needs of each researcher. Our goal is not simply to systematize archaeological documentation, as traditionally proposed, but to establish a simple and robust method for data collection and preservation, accessible to any user. Its fully open-source approach aims to promote a model that is nurtured by the use and contributions of the research community.

It remains a little-known fact that from March 1766 to May 1767 Jean-Jacques Rousseau – fleeing from persecution in France and Switzerland – stayed in the remote hamlet of Wootton in Staffordshire. There he composed the first half of his Confessions in a garden hermitage, a structure half natural and half architectural, ever since known as Rousseau’s Cave. Our paper records the hermitage in its current state (exposed to the elements); it creates a digital reconstruction of the hermitage as it was in Rousseau’s lifetime; and it provides digital access to a monument that is otherwise not generally accessible.

Our paper records a modest but fairly typical eighteenth-century garden hermitage and also, with the highest quality digital reconstructions and fly-throughs, provides a new insight into the creation of one of the world’s greatest works of literature.

The paper contributes substantial new material to the study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and also contributes to garden history and the phenomenon of the garden hermitage.

The tattoos of the Pazyryk ice mummies are of paramount importance for the archaeology of Iron Age Siberia and are often discussed from a broad stylistic and symbolic perspective. However, deeper investigations into this cultural practice were hindered by the inaccessibility of quality data. Here, the authors use high-resolution, near-infrared data in conjunction with experimental evidence to re-examine the tools and techniques employed in Early Iron Age tattooing. The high-quality data allow for the previously unfeasible distinction of artist hands and enable us to put the individual back into the picture of a widespread but rarely preserved prehistoric practice.

The long-term development of coral reef frameworks and the net vertical accretion of reefs fundamentally underpins the provisioning of most reef-related ecosystem services. One area of particular concern at present is how rates of reef accretion are changing under ecological decline and what the consequences of this may be for the capacity of reefs to keep pace with near-future sea-level rise (SLR). This may have major implications for the capacity of reefs to maintain their coastal protective functions and to support reef island stability. Both are issues relevant to understanding future tropical coastal risk. Long-term (millennial timescale) rates of reef accretion are relatively well constrained, including through past periods of sea-level fluctuations. However, widespread and persistent ecological degradation of coral communities has caused many reefs to diverge significantly from their past accretion trajectories. This renders historical analogues increasingly unreliable for projecting future accretion potential. Addressing this necessitates a reorientation towards considering reef accretion rates across shorter (ecological to geomorphic) timescales, i.e., over years to multi-decades. This is essential if we are to better constrain contemporary reef accretion rate and SLR interactions at timescales relevant to predicting emerging coastal risks and understanding future implications for reef-derived benefits. Here, we review existing approaches for quantifying vertical reef accretion rates of modern reefs. These methods span data recovered from fossil outcrops or core-derived records, the conversion of carbonate budget data, direct in situ measurements and emerging remote sensing and image-based techniques. The review explores the advantages and limitations of these different approaches and outlines options for developing an integrated framework to link past, present and future reef accretion potential.

The nature and extent of interactions between the distant regions and cultures of Mesoamerica remain open to much debate. Close economic and political ties developed between Teotihuacan and the lowland Maya during the Early Classic period (AD 250–550), yet the relationship between these cultures continues to perplex scholars. This article presents an elaborately painted altar from an elite residential group at the lowland Maya centre of Tikal, Guatemala. Dating to the fifth century AD, the altar is unique in its display of Teotihuacan architectural and artistic forms, adding to evidence not only for cultural influence during this period, but also for an active Teotihuacan presence at Tikal.

Recent research on the organisation and growth of large settlements (both urban and non-urban) has prompted a reassessment of factors driving population aggregation. Systematic aerial and ground survey of the South Caucasus mega-fortress Dmanisis Gora, described here, contributes to the understanding of large fortress settlements in the South Caucasus (c. 1500–500 BC) as part of this wider debate. Substantial defensive walls and stone architecture in the outer settlement contrast with low-intensity occupation, possibly by a seasonally mobile segment of the population. The exceptional size of Dmanisis Gora helps add new dimensions to population aggregation models in Eurasia and beyond.

The Central Mediterranean Penal Heritage Project (CMPHP) employs remote-sensing techniques to study and preserve archaeological remains of human confinement. Within this larger project, digital photogrammetry was used to document part of the castle prison in Noto Antica to identify and digitally preserve graffiti depicting galleys and gameboards.

La Milpa, situated in northern Belize, stands out as one of the region's largest archaeological sites, having served as the capital of an ancient Maya city-state. Its significance is indicated by extensive monumental architecture, with the epicenter covering approximately 8.8 ha. The site's corpus of monuments, comprising 23 stelae and several altars, underscores its prominence in northern Belize, rivaling the corpora of sites such as Nim li Punit and Caracol. Despite its remote location, La Milpa has garnered the attention of researchers, particularly since the first modern survey of the site in 1988. Subsequent studies—in particular, that by Nikolai Grube in the 1990s—has provided detailed analyses of the site's corpus of carved monuments. Recent efforts, including epigraphic documentation in 2019, serve to enhance our understanding of La Milpa's dynastic history through traditional epigraphic and computational photographic methods. Utilizing field observations, raking light photography, and 3D photogrammetric models, we have refined previous analyses and provide new insights into the iconography and textual segments of the monuments. Here, we present the results of these recent efforts as well as our new analyses of a selection of monuments.

In the summer of 2022, Tulane University, in collaboration with archaeologists from other institutions, began excavations at the site of Pompeii. The archaeological work was focused on Insula 14 of Region 1, located in the southeastern sector of the site. To overcome the challenges of recording a complex urban excavation, and of working with a collaborative team, we designed and implemented a unique workflow that combines paperless and 3D data-capture methods through the use of GIS technologies. The final product of our documentation workflow was a robust and easy-to-use online geodatabase where archaeologists can revisit, explore, visualize, and analyze each excavated context using virtual tools. We present our workflow for digitally documenting observational and spatial data in the field, and how we made these data available to project archaeologists during and after the field season. First, we describe the development of digital forms in ESRI's Survey123. Then, we explain our procedures for 3D documentation through SfM photogrammetric methods and discuss how we integrated the data and transformed it into an accessible format by using interactive dashboards and online 3D web scenes. Finally, we discuss the components of our workflow that are broadly applicable and that can easily be adapted to other projects.

The military invasion of Ukraine has destroyed and damaged extensive built cultural heritage, including churches, museums and monuments. Based on site visits conducted since the invasion, we outline damage to the eleventh-century sites of Boldyni Hory, Chernihiv, and the church, citadel and graveyard at Oster, Chernihiv Oblast.

Debate surrounds the identity of the Europeans who settled Iceland and Greenland in the early medieval period. Historical sources record settlers travelling from Norway to Iceland and then Greenland, but recent analyses of biological data suggest that some settlers had British and Irish ancestry. Here, the authors test these hypotheses with 3D-shape analyses of human crania from Scandinavia, Britain and Ireland, and one of the Norse colonies in Greenland. Results suggest that some 63 per cent of the ancestry of the Greenlandic individuals can be traced to Britain and Ireland and 37 per cent to Scandinavia. These findings add further weight to the idea that the European settlers who colonised Iceland and later Greenland were of mixed ancestry.

We present a photogrammetric model and new line drawing of Sacul Stela 3 at the ancient Maya site of Sacul 1, Guatemala. Although virtually illegible in person and from photographs, the inscription on the eroded stela can largely be read or reconstructed in the 3D model. Our reading confirms a previous argument that the kingdom based at Sacul 1 was attacked in A.D. 779 by forces from the site of Ucanal. Traveling by night, warriors from Sacul retaliated with a raid at dawn next day on an unidentified site and, months later, followed up with an attack on Ucanal itself. The same narrative appears substantially on a well-known monument, Ixkun Stela 2, but there are differences between the two texts which suggest that Sacul and Ixkun had their own sculptors and record-keepers and which offer insights into the implications of verbs (pul, “to burn” and ch'ak, “to chop”) commonly attested in Classic Maya accounts of war. We then present the results of GIS analysis which suggests that the site area of El Rosario (between Sacul 1 and Ucanal) is an appealing candidate for the unidentified site mentioned in the stela text.

The aim of this contribution is to provide a new methodology regarding the use of photogrammetry and 3D modelling in the classroom. By means of a practicum taught at Complutense University of Madrid and a survey conducted afterwards, we show the different steps of the activity, as well as the reception of the students, who learnt to elaborate 3D figures.

Detailed photogrammetry and 3D laser scanning of rock art, geophysics research and sondage excavations conducted at the Painted Hand Petroglyph Panel, a large rock art site in south-western Colorado, USA, has revealed new information about the cultural situation in the pre-Columbian and historic North American Southwest.

Archaeology is increasingly employing remote sensing techniques such as airborne lidar (light detection and ranging), terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), and photogrammetry in tropical environments where dense vegetation hinders to a great extent the ability to understand the scope of ancient landscape modification. These technologies have enabled archaeologists to develop sophisticated analyses that overturn traditional misconceptions of tropical ecologies and the human groups that have inhabited them in the long term. This article presents new data on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia that reveals the extent to which its ancient societies transformed this landscape, which is frequently thought of as pristine. By recursively integrating remote sensing and archaeology, this study contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship examining ancient land use and occupation in densely forested contexts.

In the last decade, archaeologists have been using human-occupied interactive digital built environments to investigate human agency, settlement, and behavior. To document this evidence, we provide here one method of conducting drone-based photogrammetry and GIS mapping from within these digital spaces based on well-established methods conducted in physical landscapes. Mapping is an integral part of archaeology in the natural world, but it has largely eluded researchers in these new, populated digital landscapes. We hope that our proposed method helps to resolve this issue. We argue that employing archaeological methods in digital environments provides a successful methodological framework to investigate human agency in digital spaces for anthropological purposes and has the potential for extrapolating data from human-digital landscape interactions and applying them to their natural analogues.

At Tell Yunatsite, a prehistoric settlement mound located in the Upper Thracian plain of Bulgaria, stratigraphic relationships between archaeological deposits are incredibly complex. Such complexity then prompted our exploration into developing a new methodology for the documentation of complex stratigraphic relationships. Here, we present the results of a new photogrammetry-assisted methodology that was developed to compensate for the shortcomings of currently utilized stratigraphic documentation methods, such as the Wheeler-Kenyon box grid and the Harris Matrix. First, using a UAV drone, we produce a high-resolution photogrammetric model of the entire site. Second, with structure from motion photogrammetry, we produce 2.5D models of excavation units in stratigraphic succession. Finally, utilizing GIS and Blender (a 3D computer graphics software application), we digitize the horizontal extents of each archaeological deposit and “fill” the space between their successive surfaces (from top to bottom) until a faithful 3D model of each deposit is generated. These deposit models are then combined and rendered simultaneously to form 3D block models of the excavation units that may, in turn, be cross-sectioned in any direction to view stratigraphic relationships in virtual profile.

Since 1979, when the first cave art was documented in North America, dozens of other examples have come to light. Among these, 19th Unnamed Cave in Alabama contains hundreds of pre-contact Native American mud glyph drawings. In 2017, 3D modelling of the glyphs was initiated, ultimately enabling digital manipulation of the chamber space and revealing images that could not be perceived prior to modelling. Most surprisingly, the cave's ceiling features very large anthropomorphic glyphs that are not apparent in situ due to the tight confines of the cave. We argue that photogrammetry offers untapped potential for not simply the documentation but also the discovery of a variety of archaeological phenomena.

Full-coverage pedestrian survey to record cultural features on unexplored archaeological landscapes is costly in terms of time, money, and personnel. Over the past two decades, researchers have implemented remote sensing and landscape data collection techniques using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to combat some of these burdens, but the initial cost of equipment, software, and processing power has hindered the ubiquitous implementation of UAV technology as an accessible companion tool to traditional archaeological survey. This article presents a free and open-source, technology-independent analytical framework for the collection and processing of UAV images to produce high-resolution digital terrain models limited only by the equipment available to the researcher. Results from the free and open-source protocol are directly compared to those produced using proprietary software to illustrate the capabilities of freely available data processing tools for UAV-collected images. By replicating the methods outlined here, researchers should be able to identify and target areas of interest to increase fieldwork efficiency, decrease costs of implementing this technology, and produce high-resolution digital terrain models to conduct spatial analyses that pursue a deeper understanding of cultural landscapes.

This article shows how to record current events from an archaeological perspective. With a case study from the COVID-19 pandemic in Norway, we provide accessible tools to document broad spatial and behavioral patterns through material culture as they emerge. Stressing the importance of ethical engagement with contemporary subjects, we adapt archaeological field methods—including geolocation, photography, and three-dimensional modeling—to analyze the changing relationships between materiality and human sociality through the crisis. Integrating data from four contributors, we suggest that this workflow may engage broader publics as anthropological data collectors to describe unexpected social phenomena. Contemporary archaeological perspectives, deployed in rapid response, provide alternative readings on the development of current events. In the presented case, we suggest that local ways of coping with the pandemic may be overshadowed by the materiality of large-scale corporate and state response.