Scientific director: Cristiano Putzolu
Period: each Tuesday from 1.30 to 5.30 PM from 13th January to 05th May 2026
Attendance: frontal lesson in presence
Place: Laboratorio di Topografia del Dipartimento di Storia Culture Civiltà, Piazza S. Giovanni in Monte 2, Bologna
Admitted students: Priority will be given to those working on a thesis project. Attendance is optional, subject to the capacity of the Topography Laboratory, which allows no more than 10 students to participate at a time.
Email: cristiano.putzolu@unibo.it
Aims
DiSCi has several field investigation projects (excavations and fieldwalking surveys) that involve the use of survey methodologies or data analysis typical of digital archaeology, which for various reasons (to optimise data acquisition work in the field, for the impossibility of bringing the necessary hardware on the mission, for lack of time to train students in post-excavation data processing procedures, etc.) often do not see the post-processing phase directly on the ground.
Operations such as the processing of photogrammetric surveys, the vectorialisation of orthophotomodels in a GIS environment, and data-entry in databases therefore often become operations that are postponed to a later date before leaving for a new campaign.
The aim of the digital archaeology workshop is the digital training of the DiSCi students who participate in the excavation or survey activities promoted by colleagues in the Department by processing the data they themselves have helped to collect in the field (learning by doing).
At the same time, it is aimed at those who need to use digital archaeology methodologies for their thesis work.
In order to meet the diverse needs of the different participants, the workshop will not have a programme but will take the form of an open space (on Tuesdays from 1.30 to 5.30 p.m.) in which everyone knows they have a space where they can bring their case study and proceed with their thesis work or they can experience post-processing techniques on what they have helped to collect during the survey campaigns.
An attendance register will help keep track of the number of hours accumulated by each student so that the certificate of attendance can then be issued.
Program
At the end of the workshop, each participant will have had direct experience of the contribution of digital archaeology to the knowledge production process in an archaeological project and will at the same time have made progress in their thesis work or contributed to the implementation of the project in which they were involved in the fieldwork phase.
Suggested readings
Dell’Unto N., Landeschi G. 2022, Geographical information systems in archaeology, in Dell’Unto N., Landeschi G. - Archaeological 3D GIS, pp. 5-17
Wheatley D., Gillings M. 2002, Spatial Technology and Archaeology. The archaeological applications of GIS, Chapters 1-3, pp. 1-78. Qgis User Guide: https://docs.qgis.org/3.22/en/docs/user_manual/
