Call for Paper

Chairs: Benjamin DUCKE, Germany | Anita GACH | Friedrich SCHIPPER | Hubert SZEMETHY, Austria

In the light of recent events, the volatility of archaeological sites and cultural heritage during armed conflicts has once again become painfully obvious. But there are also more permanent, less attention-grabing threats to the world’s cultural heritage; and these are perhaps more significant in the long term. Every expansion of agricultural lands, every construction boom and every increase in population density puts further stress on monuments, sites and historic landscapes. Given our limited resources, it seems an unrealistic (and perhaps even inappropriate) idea to curate and preserve every known archaeological site, let alone the ones that remain buried and unexplored. And where preservation gets in the way of economic development, the latter almost invariably wins.

Effective cultural heritage thus operates at the sometimes chaotic intersection of political will, economic means, manpower and technological possibilities. In keeping with the spirit of CHNT, this session focuses on effective IT solutions for documenting and managing monuments, sites and landscapes. We invite contributions that:

  • provide case studies in low-cost and robust IT solutions for site documentation and heritage management,
  • give examples for including modern technology and IT solutions in the design of heritage laws and best practice guides,
  • talk about the long-term effectiveness and impact of IT for heritage management in difficult environments,
  • explore the practical potentials and (most importantly) limitations of promising or ‘hyped’ technologies in everyday field work,
  • share experience in how to activate the public using crowd-sourcing technologies,
  • use desk-baseded, fast and minimally invasive methods (predictive models, remote sensing, geophysical surveys, etc.) to assess the extent of unexplored, hidden and buried monuments

We would especially welcome case studies that use efficient and low-cost approaches that are suitable for general application in economically constrained and difficult environments. The overall aim of this session is to assess how and under what conditions generally available, modern technology can make the most significant and lasting difference for the protecton of cultural heritage in danger, either in its physical or digital form.