Digital Pasts
| Module title | Digital Pasts |
|---|---|
| Module code | ARC3133 |
| Academic year | 2025/6 |
| Credits | 15 |
| Module staff | Dr Carly Ameen (Convenor) |
| Duration: Term | 1 | 2 | 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration: Weeks | 10 |
| Number students taking module (anticipated) | 20 |
|---|
Module description
This module provides an advanced overview of key digital techniques for acquiring, structuring, analysing and disseminating digital information about archaeological artefacts and landscapes. You will gain an understanding of major digital methodologies including 3D modelling, image manipulation and geospatial technologies and gain hands on experience using these techniques during practical sessions. No specific prior knowledge is required, though a basic familiarity with computers is assumed.
Module aims - intentions of the module
The module aims to provide an overview and practical understanding of how digital technologies can be employed for the study and dissemination of archaeological and historical data in both academic and public contexts. You will be introduced to key digital methodologies and their applications and will gain practical skills in techniques that are changing the way we interact with historical and archaeological source materials.
The module is divided into 3 thematic sessions, each covering three weeks, where you will receive a grounding in the basic principles associated with each theme, exposure to a variety of research and real-world applications, and hands-on practical experience working with relevant digital tools using the state-of-the-art facilities and resources available to us in Archaeology and Digital Humanities.
While increasing your skills in digital techniques, this module will also encourage you to critically reflect on the methods you encounter, helping you to appreciate their benefits and biases, and to assess the relevance and potential of new techniques covered in the future. The range of observational and analytical skills covered are applicable in the wider world, helping you develop skills increasingly sought by employers, and which can be put to use for further dissertation and postgraduate research.
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
ILO: Module-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 1. Demonstrate a systematic understanding of specific digital techniques currently used in archaeology and history research
- 2. Demonstrate competence in a range of digital analytical methods employed by archaeologists and historians
- 3. Understand the role of digital technologies in analysing and disseminating archaeological and historical data
- 4. Acquire skills in extracting information from existing digital resources.
ILO: Discipline-specific skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 5. Demonstrate developed skills in acquiring, structuring, and analysing digital data
- 6. Apply skills in specific software techniques for creating, querying, and displaying data
- 7. Critically reflect on the impact of digital technologies on our understanding of the past
ILO: Personal and key skills
On successfully completing the module you will be able to...
- 8. Present, describe and evaluate complex information
- 9. Acquire a range of observational and analytical skills which are applicable in the wider world and for e.g. postgraduate level research
- 10. Produce effective and publication-quality images, graphs and figures
Syllabus plan
This course is divided into three core sections, comprising of unique mini-modules each linked by related thematic topics. While the structure may vary from year to year, we expect that each mini-module will cover 3 weeks of content around a central theme, covering:
• Theoretical introduction to the basic concepts of each technique
• A series of case studies looking at the approaches in practice
• Hands-on practical(s) allowing you to apply these techniques to a specific dataset.
Whilst the themes of the mini-modules may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that they will cover some or all of the following topics:
• Digital imaging (e.g. photography, Reflective Transformance Imaging, microscopy, image manipulation and digital illustration)
• Radiography, including the acquisition of both 2D and 3D (CT) x-ray images.
• Digital management and analysis of data, databases, mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
• 3D modelling for curation, display and analysis of objects and landscapes (e.g. photogrammetry, LiDAR, structured light)
• Materials analysis including XRF, XRD, FT-IR techniques
Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities | Guided independent study | Placement / study abroad |
|---|---|---|
| 28 | 122 | 0 |
Details of learning activities and teaching methods
| Category | Hours of study time | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching activities | 28 | Made up of 10 hours of lecture and live discussion content and 18 hours of guided practical engagement with digital datasets, technologies, and resources |
| Guided independent study | 122 | Independent study using computer aided learning, reading, and interaction with digital resources |
Formative assessment
| Form of assessment | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contribution to class discussions and engagement with practical tasks | Attendance and participation in discussions, and in practical sections as appropriate | 2,4-7,9 | Oral, in class |
Summative assessment (% of credit)
| Coursework | Written exams | Practical exams |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 0 | 0 |
Details of summative assessment
| Form of assessment | % of credit | Size of the assessment (eg length / duration) | ILOs assessed | Feedback method |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini Project 1 | 34 | 1000-word equivalent, including digital outputs, illustrations and figures | 1-10 | Mark, oral and written feedback |
| Mini Project 2 | 33 | 1000-word equivalent, including digital outputs, illustrations and figures | 1-10 | Mark and written feedback |
| Mini Project 3 | 33 | 1000-word equivalent, including digital outputs, illustrations and figures | 1-10 | Mark, oral and written feedback |
Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)
| Original form of assessment | Form of re-assessment | ILOs re-assessed | Timescale for re-assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mini Project 1 (1000-word equivalent, including digital outputs, illustrations and figures) | 1000-word project equivalent, including digital outputs, illustrations and figures working with a new dataset. (34%) | 1-10 | Ref-def period |
| Mini Project 2 (1000-word equivalent, including digital outputs, illustrations and figures) | 1000-word project equivalent, including digital outputs, illustrations and figures working with a new dataset. (33%) | 1-10 | Ref-def period |
| Mini Project 3 (1000-word equivalent, including digital outputs, illustrations and figures) | 1000-word project equivalent, including digital outputs, illustrations and figures working with a new dataset. (33%) | 1-10 | Ref-def period |
Re-assessment notes
Where you have been referred/deferred for one of the mini-modules, you will be given an alternative dataset and further practical exercise and required to produce a mini project based on that data, (1000-word equivalent).
Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.
Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.
Indicative learning resources - Basic reading
- Beelen, Kasper, Jon Lawrence, Daniel C.S. Wilson, and David Beavan, ‘Bias and representativeness in digitized newspapers’, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (Advance Access, 2022) https://academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-article/doi/10.1093/llc/fqac037/6644524
- Bodenhamer, D. J., J. Corrigan and T. M. Harris (eds), The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the future of humanities scholarship (2010) (chapter 6: G. Lock, ‘Representations of Space and Place in the Humanities’, pp 89-108)
- Cameron, F. The future of digital data, heritage and curation in a more-than human world. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2021.
- Giannini T, Bowen JP. Museums and Digital Culture: From Reality to Digitality in the Age of COVID-19. Heritage. 2022; 5(1):192-214. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage5010011
- Hitchock, T., ‘Confronting the digital: or how academic history writing lost the plot’, Cultural and Social History, 10 (2012), 9-23
- Hudson, Pat and Mina Ishizu. History by Numbers: An Introduction to Quantitative Approaches. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.
- Klein, L.F. & Gold, M.K., eds. 2016. Debates in the Digital Humanities. 2016 Edition. University of Minnesota Press
- Prescott, Andrew., ‘I’d rather be a librarian: a response to Tim Hitchcock, ‘Confronting the digital’’, Cultural and Social History, 11 (2014), 335-41
- Putnam, Laura, ‘The transnational and the tex-searchable: digitized sources and the shadows they cast’, American Historical Review, 121 (2016), 377-402
- Richardson, L., A Digital Public Archaeology?. Papers from the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. 2013; 23(1): 10, pp. 1-12
- Daniel J. Story, Jo Guldi, Tim Hitchcock, Michelle Moravec, History’s Future in the Age of the Internet, The American Historical Review, Volume 125, Issue 4, October 2020, Pages 1337–1346,
- Vincent, M. L. et al. (eds.) (2018) Heritage and archaeology in the digital age: acquisition, curation, and dissemination of spatial cultural heritage data. Cham, Switzerland: Springer
Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources
- ELE – Faculty to provide hyperlink to appropriate pages
- https://programminghistorian.org/en/
- https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/
| Credit value | 15 |
|---|---|
| Module ECTS | 7.5 |
| Module pre-requisites | None |
| Module co-requisites | None |
| NQF level (module) | 6 |
| Available as distance learning? | No |
| Origin date | 25/05/2023 |
| Last revision date | 11/02/2025 |
