With this year's theme “Making a difference: the value of archaeology” CIfA’s Annual Conference was specifically relevant to current affairs, portraying that archaeology can, and does, help to understand and answer some of the big questions of our time. Moreover, being a hybrid event was great for those delegates who wished to attend in person as well as for those who, like myself, were unable to travel.
I was particularly interested in attending the Recent Advances in Digital Archaeology panel, as I am aspiring to specialise in archaeological illustration and am interested in how today's graphics technology can assist in disseminating research more broadly. The presentations were inspiring, showing how organisations are increasing their digital resources as results of pandemic, thus broadening their outreach. Additionally, projects in virtual archaeology are bringing to the public, sites that are difficult to access while leaving no evidence on the landscape. While there are great advantages in using new virtual archaeology technologies, for instance augmented reality for reconstruction of archaeological sites, several challenges were wisely highlighted, including connectivity in rural areas, maintenance of the technology, and how the development process is time consuming.
I'm looking forward to next year's conference and all the events in between!
