The Site Problem: A Critical Review of the Site Concept in Archaeology in the Digital Age

ABSTRACT

While the site concept continues to be fundamental to archaeology there are a number of known practical and theoretical problems with sites as units of observation. In the digital age, geospatial technologies give us the capacity to detect, record, index, and analyze sites at scales impossible in the analog age when the notion of a site entered our lexicon. Using examples from recent research, I present a critical review of how geospatial technologies have complicated how we think about sites, specifically centering on three trends: 1) increasing application of remote sensing; 2) the new ways we make field observations with high resolution recording techniques, like 3D scanning; and 3) site indices that must balance the inherent conflict between obscuring site locations to protect them from unwanted visitation and damage, and displaying site location as a necessary prerequisite of advocating for their protection.

KEYWORDS:

• Site concept
• geospatial archaeology
• Big Data

Acknowledgments

This paper builds on my discussion of presentations at a session of the 2019 Society of American Archaeology organized by Parker VanValkenburgh and Andrew Dufton. I want to thank them both for the invitation and to all the participants for sharing their work ahead of the conference and their suggestions regarding the site concept in the digital age. The final paper was helped enormously by comments from the editors of this special edition of the journal and two anonymous reviewers. Special thanks to Thegn N. Ladefoged for discussions on this topic.

Notes on Contributor

Mark D. McCoy (Ph.D. 2006, University of California, Berkeley) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University. His expertise is in the application of geospatial technology in archaeology. He is a landscape archaeologist whose research centers on the development of ancient political economies and human ecodynamics with a regional focus on the islands of the Pacific.

ORCID

Mark D. McCoy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1929-1579