Remember when you had to wait months for a dig report to get published?

I was at the Çatalhöyük site in Turkey back in 2012, and our team found a painted plaster fragment. We had to sketch it, take notes, and then basically wait for the annual report to come out to see the full analysis. Now, the grad students there just upload high-res 3D scans to a shared server the same day. Makes me miss the old field notebooks a little, even if it's way more efficient. Anyone else feel a bit nostalgic for the slower pace of field documentation?

3 comments

3 Comments

hayes.tara22d ago

Honestly, that instant data sounds like a dream! The old way meant so much could get lost or messed up before it was shared.

lily39422d ago

My buddy's whole project got messed up last year. They were still using the old paper sheets for field counts. A whole box of data got left in a truck bed during a rainstorm. Weeks of work just turned to mush. The numbers were gone before anyone even saw them. That kind of loss just doesn't happen with instant digital info. It really does change everything.

brown.reese7d agoTop Commenter

That's a brutal way to learn the lesson. Losing physical data feels so much worse than a computer crash. Makes the switch to digital a no-brainer.