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Articles

Vol. 52 No. 1 (2025): CAA2025 Digital Horizons: Embracing Heritage in an Evolving World. Proceedings of the 52nd Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology

What You Don’t See is What You Don’t Get: Problems of Effortless Photorealism in Archaeological Field Documentation

DOI
https://doi.org/10.64888/caaproceedings.v52i1.1426
Submitted
April 23, 2026
Published
2026-06-17

Abstract

Photorealistic and scientifically precise 3D capturing as a main documentation tool has become a standard already in certain contexts of archaeological fieldwork. Tools and software are increasingly affordable and user-friendly, and simultaneously the public heritage agencies, museums and scientific collections are increasingly capable of processing and storing this data. The future looks promising for SfM photogrammetry, LiDAR and other 3D capture technologies, but some fundamental problems may be hidden beneath the sheen of the visually striking and precise outputs.

This paper examines photorealistic 3D field documentation technologies from a critical perspective.  As we can efficiently make precise 360-degree models of the fieldwork project with the click of a button, is there a risk that we are losing the ability to use our own human senses to recognize other relevant features? Using a material of some 2,600 Finnish fieldwork reports between 2013 and 2022, this paper identifies archaeologically significant phenomena that may be getting out of focus due to the ease of ‘3D-scanning’ everything frequently. Ultimately, the paper aims to ask fundamental questions for future discussions on how to effectively instruct and guide archaeological 3D documentation principles.

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