Following up on our discussion today, I wanted to share with you one of the historical tours from Assassin's Creed: Odyssey. Here is a video of a tour of the Acropolis in Athens. For those of you who don't interact with this digital format, this video will give you a sense of the historical detail worked into this open world game, and a sense of the kind of tours the game provides. Take a look and a listen.  Why do you think Ubisoft puts such detail in the game environments,  and tries to capture such accuracy (note the different columns, for example, and how their placement "makes sense" with various episodes of building on the Acropolis). Doing so certainly invites both a more immersive experience, and a sense of authenticity. But can you think of any issues this practice can raise? Also, this is not an educational format, per se, definitely a commercial enterprise... so how is the digital heritage of Athens being leveraged here...and how does it (or does it?) link to digital archaeological and historical practices?

Could DNA be the future for storage of archaeological?

    Archaeologists, well really everyone, are well aware of the fast-paced evolution of technology which drives previous technology to become obsolete. This has become an increasing problem with data being lost, trapped on old forms of technology like floppy disks. Also, if a technology doesn’t become obsolete, the computers and hard drives the information is stored on degrades and becomes unreliable in only a few decades at most. This becomes problematic when previously-collected archaeological assemblages are lost for future researchers and descendent communities. But what if we were able to utilize a storage medium for archaeological data that will never become obsolete? While the future is impossible to guarantee, we may be closer than we know. 

    What I’m referring to is deoxyribonucleic acid, commonly known as DNA. It already stores all the biological information of living organisms. DNA is made of four organic bases; Adenine (A), Guanine (G), Cytosine (C), and Thymine (T). A codon is the combination of three bases (ex. GCA) and instructs cells to create each of the proteins in our bodies. However, this code system can be used for other things too. With 64 possible codons, alphabets and codes are able to be translated into codons as long as the coder and decoder are using the same key. In fact, in 1999 scientists in New York did exactly this, substituting each possible codon for a letter, number, or grammar symbol. By sequencing the strand of DNA, they were able to perfectly decode their secret message after sending it to themselves through the mail. This signalled the rise of DNA cryptography. 

    However, this doesn’t end with science-enthusiastic spies. By translating the 1’s and 0’s of binary code from the digital archaeological data into DNA codons, data could be translated and stored within synthetic DNA. This method has been proven by UK scientists in 2012 who successfully coded and decoded all 154 Shakespeare sonnets. Following this achievement, Microsoft and the University of Washington encoded 200 megabytes of data, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all in strands of DNA. The theoretical storage capacity of DNA is endless, as synthetic DNA strands can be as long as required.  With the half-life of DNA being 500 years, the possibility of data storage is greatly increased. Storing DNA in a cold dark environment enables the possibility of DNA to be preserved for hundreds of thousands of years as well. The oldest human DNA ever sequenced was about 430,000 years old from Spain and the DNA of an extinct ape dating 1.9 million years old from China has even been successfully sequenced. Scientists have also been able to sequence synthetic DNA within a bacterium that allows reproduction for at least 100 generations with zero original data loss incurred. With life sciences and biology continuing to advance and receive funding, it is possible this technology will expand to every market, enabling archaeologists to explore this new form of digital data storage. As long as biological organisms exist, so will DNA.

    My next post will explore some ethical considerations that must accompany this technology if it is introduced to archaeological practice. 

- Lauren

Differing Framing of a Digital Archaeology

Hi all,

You may have noticed that we will be reading a couple of articles from an issue in the Journal of Field Archaeology on digital practice in archaeology. As a conference proceedings, it tends to be all over the place in theme. But what is interesting is a take on this publication that talks of archaeology "finally" embracing digital humanities' approach to practice. Interesting, given how deep digital practices and reflexivity we've seen has been in archaeology for so long. In my mind, there is this "re-discovering" the digital in archaeology (the archaeology in the digital?) that pops up again and again, though it tends to re-invent the past in the re-discovery. What tends to happen, mostly, though, is that it tends to widen the definition further... or water it down, depending on your perspective. This have been going on since  archaeologists first brought their data to the "computer room/building" to advance new insights... which ironically are now inviting new material research on the making of punch cards !