To what extent does our use of digital devices to capture and process archaeological data affect our perceptions of what was there? Mark Altaweel (2018) has recently asked a similar question in relation to GPS technologies – how do these affect our understanding and experience of place? He suggests that they diminish our sense of place and experiences that we might otherwise have as we navigate according to their recommendations. Certainly, satnavs are notorious for taking our navigational cognitive load upon themselves and consequently leading drivers who are insufficiently aware of their surroundings into undesirable, even dangerous situations. We might think that the human cognitive load that is thereby freed up by such devices ought to be capable of being diverted into more useful, more extensive, areas – we literally have the space to think about bigger and deeper things as a consequence of their application. This kind of argument frequently arises in relation to the value of automation, for instance, and can be seen in the kinds of discussions surrounding the use of structure-from-motion photogrammetric recording on archaeological excavations, for example. But is this supposed release of cognitive space an unalloyed good? Or is this a case of the technologies distancing us from the physicality of the archaeological material and space in front of us?
