What Digital Archaeology Is (And Has Always Been)

The Archaeobytological Foundation

Digital Archaeology Reconsidered: Synthesis

Unearth Heritage Foundry

Abstract

The four essays of this series have traced an arc from diagnosis to theory and from method to politics. The present synthesis draws the threads together and makes the definitive claim: digital archaeology, properly understood, is archaeobytology. Not a subset of the field nor a competing school of thought, archaeobytology serves as the field's necessary theoretical foundation, the ground on which all digital archaeological practice implicitly stands. Every practitioner who recovers data from obsolete media and every archivist who preserves endangered websites as well as every scholar who interprets digital artifacts from the past engage in archaeobytology, whether the name is recognized or not. The synthesis demonstrates this identity through three movements: first, showing that archaeobytological concepts are already implicit in existing practice; second, demonstrating that explicit adoption of the archaeobytological framework improves that practice; third, articulating the programmatic implications for the field's future. Digital archaeology has always been archaeobytology. The time to know itself has arrived.

Introduction: The Unification

What is digital archaeology?

The question has haunted the field since its emergence. As Essay I demonstrated, four distinct traditions have claimed the term: computational archaeology (using digital tools to study physical sites) and forensic recovery (rescuing data from damaged or obsolete media) alongside nostalgic excavation (exploring the web's past through archives and emulation) and media archaeology (theorizing the deep history of technical apparatuses). The four traditions share a name but little else. Such traditions cite different literatures and employ different methods as well as pursue different questions. The "field" of digital archaeology is not a field but a terminological accident, a collision of homonyms mistaken for a discipline.

The present essay series has proposed a solution: archaeobytology as the theoretical foundation that unifies disparate practices by articulating what is shared. All four traditions investigate digital artifacts. All four confront the distinctive properties of digital objects; processual nature and dual materiality alongside peculiar decay mechanisms. All four make implicit ontological commitments about what digital artifacts are and how they should be studied. Archaeobytology makes these commitments explicit and provides a vocabulary for articulating them as well as developing the methodological protocols appropriate to them.

The claim of this synthesis is strong: digital archaeology, properly understood, is archaeobytology. The two terms are not synonyms (archaeobytology has theoretical content that "digital archaeology" lacks), but the terms refer to the same practice. Anyone doing digital archaeology is doing archaeobytology—implicitly, partially, often without adequate theoretical grounding. The explicit adoption of archaeobytological theory does not change what practitioners do. The theory clarifies what practitioners have always been doing and enables them to do it better.

The synthesis proceeds in three movements. First, the essay demonstrates that archaeobytological concepts are already present, implicitly, in existing digital archaeological practice. Second, the essay shows that explicit adoption of the archaeobytological framework improves practice by providing conceptual tools and enabling communication across traditions as well as grounding methodological choices in theoretical principles. Third, the essay articulates the programmatic implications (what it means for the field to recognize itself as archaeobytology, and what work remains to be done).

Part I: The Implicit Archaeobytology

Concepts Already in Use

Consider the practices of digital archaeologists across traditions. Even without using archaeobytological vocabulary, they employ archaeobytological concepts.

The forensic data recovery specialist who distinguishes between a "live" file (accessible through normal means) and a "deleted" file (removed from the file system but potentially recoverable from unallocated sectors) is implicitly working with concepts resembling the Vivibyte/Umbrabyte/Petribyte taxonomy. The live file is functional and accessible as well as alive: a Vivibyte. The deleted-but-recoverable file exists in a liminal state; formal structure persists, but systemic integration is severed: an Umbrabyte. The file whose sectors have been overwritten is gone, recoverable only through secondary documentation if at all: a Nullibyte. The specialist may not use these terms, but the conceptual distinctions are operative in practice.¹

The web archivist who captures snapshots of websites knows that what is preserved is not the website itself but a trace, a frozen moment stripped of server-side functionality and dynamic content alongside contextual links. The Liminal Archive functions in practice; the recognition that preservation is always partial and that the archived artifact is an Umbrabyte whose full functionality cannot be recovered. The archivist's documentation of what was lost (broken scripts, missing assets, severed links) is symptomatic reading avant la lettre.²

The media archaeologist who studies obsolete platforms attends to the formal specifications that governed the platform's operation (the file formats, the API conventions, the interface paradigms). Attention to formal materiality, distinct from but related to the physical substrates on which data was stored, is precisely what Essay II theorized. The media archaeologist may frame such work in Foucauldian terms rather than archaeobytological ones, but the underlying ontological commitments are compatible.³

The computational archaeologist who uses GIS to analyze spatial distributions of physical artifacts may seem furthest from archaeobytological concerns. But even here, the archaeobytological framework applies, to the tools rather than to the objects studied. The GIS software and the database structures as well as the file formats in which data is stored; these are digital artifacts with respective decay trajectories and dependencies as well as preservation challenges. The computational archaeologist whose data is locked in a proprietary format from a discontinued vendor has encountered archaeobytological problems, even if primary research concerns Bronze Age settlement patterns.

The Underground River

Archaeobytology is not an imposition from outside but an articulation of what practitioners already know. The concepts exist in practice. Such concepts lack only names and systematic articulation. Archaeobytology surfaces the underground river of implicit theory that has always flowed beneath digital archaeological practice.

The essay asserts that digital archaeology is archaeobytology, not that archaeobytology is a school within digital archaeology. The relationship is not one of part to whole but of implicit to explicit and latent to manifest. Archaeobytology does not compete with existing traditions; the framework provides the theoretical ground on which all stand.

Consider an analogy from the history of science. Before Darwin, naturalists classified organisms and described distributions as well as noted adaptations, all without a theory of evolution. Darwin did not invent a new practice called "evolutionary biology" that competed with natural history; the theorist articulated the theoretical framework that unified and explained what naturalists had been doing all along. After Darwin, natural history became evolutionary biology, not by changing practices but by understanding them differently.⁴

Archaeobytology stands in a similar relationship to digital archaeology. The practices preexist the theory. The theory articulates what the practices presuppose. Forensic recovery and web archiving as well as media archaeology and computational archaeology have all been engaged in archaeobytology. Practitioners simply did not know what to call the work.

Part II: The Improvement of Practice

Conceptual Tools

If archaeobytology merely named what practitioners already do, the framework would be a terminological convenience, not a theoretical advance. The stronger claim is that explicit adoption of archaeobytological theory improves practice, provides tools that make practitioners more effective at what they were already trying to do.

The state-based taxonomy (Vivibyte, Umbrabyte, Petribyte, Nullibyte) is such a tool. Before the taxonomy, practitioners spoke of files being "accessible" or "inaccessible" and "functional" or "broken" as well as "preserved" or "lost." Binary distinctions obscure the graduated reality of digital decay. A file may be partially accessible (some features work, others do not) or intermittently functional (works in some environments, fails in others) as well as imperfectly preserved (some metadata lost, content intact). The four-state taxonomy provides vocabulary for intermediate conditions, enabling more precise description and more targeted intervention.⁵

The distinction between forensic and formal materiality is another such tool. Before the distinction, discussions of digital preservation conflated two different problems: keeping the bits intact (forensic) and keeping the bits interpretable (formal). A preservation strategy that addresses only one dimension will fail. The explicit distinction enables practitioners to assess which dimension is at risk for a given artifact and to select appropriate interventions (refreshment for forensic decay, migration or emulation for formal decay).⁶

The concept of digital stratigraphy provides tools for temporal analysis. The Wayback Machine captures are strata, not "old versions". Captures are layers in a temporal sequence that can be analyzed for change, continuity, and rupture. The stratigraphic framework, adapted from physical archaeology, provides protocols for reading these layers (attending to relationships of superposition, identifying cuts such as deletions and platform deaths alongside respective effects, and tracing the movement of content across contexts). Without this framework, web archives are mere collections; with it, the collections become sites for systematic excavation.⁷

Communication Across Traditions

Archaeobytological vocabulary also enables communication across the traditions that have developed in isolation. The forensic specialist and the media archaeologist may investigate similar phenomena—an obsolete file format, say—but disciplinary vocabularies remain mutually unintelligible. The forensic specialist speaks of sectors, clusters, and hex dumps; the media archaeologist speaks of apparatus, inscription, and Foucauldian discourse. Neither can easily learn from the other because shared terms are lacking.

Archaeobytology provides a lingua franca. The forensic specialist's "deleted file" and the media archaeologist's "trace of a discontinued apparatus" can both be described as Umbrabytes, artifacts in a liminal state, preserved in form but severed from function. The shared vocabulary does not replace disciplinary languages but supplements them, enabling practitioners to recognize when the same phenomena are investigated from different angles.

The communicative function is essential, not merely convenient, for the field's development. No individual can master all the skills required for comprehensive digital archaeology (forensic analysis and programming as well as media history and archival science alongside critical theory). The field must develop through collaboration, and collaboration requires mutual intelligibility. Archaeobytology provides the shared conceptual framework that makes such collaboration possible.

Grounding Methodological Choices

Finally, explicit theory grounds methodological choices in principle rather than habit. Why create forensic images before analysis? Why document provenance? Why preserve original formats alongside migrated versions? Standard preservation practices can be followed as received tradition, but practitioners follow more robustly when the reason why practices matter is understood.

Archaeobytological theory provides the reasons. Forensic imaging before analysis preserves the distinction between the artifact-as-found and the artifact-as-investigated, a distinction essential to evidentiary value. Provenance documentation maintains the contextual information that gives artifacts meaning; without provenance, the artifact becomes an orphan, stripped of the relationships that constitute identity. Original format preservation hedges against migration errors and enables future investigators to apply better tools than currently possessed.

Archaeobytological ontology grounds these reasons, not arbitrary preferences. If digital artifacts are processual events rather than static objects, then preserving the conditions of actualization is essential. If meaning is constituted by context, then context must be documented. If formal materiality decays through ecosystem change, then preservation must anticipate future ecosystems not fully predictable. Theory does not dictate specific practices, but theory explains why certain practices are appropriate and others are not.

Part III: The Programmatic Implications

Recognition and Self-Knowledge

What follows if the field accepts that digital archaeology is archaeobytology?

First, recognition: the acknowledgment that disparate practices share a common foundation and can learn from each other. The forensic specialist should read media archaeology; the media archaeologist should learn forensic techniques. Cross-training across traditions becomes not a luxury but a professional expectation. Graduate programs in digital archaeology should include archaeobytological theory as a core requirement, not an elective specialization.

Second, self-knowledge: the understanding that digital archaeological practice has theoretical commitments, whether or not practitioners articulate the concepts. The practitioner who rejects theory is not theory-free but theory-unconscious, operating with implicit assumptions that may be inconsistent or inadequate. Archaeobytological theory makes these assumptions explicit and subject to critique. Self-knowledge enables improvement.

Third, authority: the capacity to speak with a unified voice on matters of cultural concern. Digital heritage is under threat from platform capitalism and neglect as well as from the accelerating pace of technological change. A field fragmented into non-communicating traditions cannot effectively advocate for preservation resources, policy changes, or public attention. A unified field—digital archaeology as archaeobytology—can.

The Research Agenda

Recognition also clarifies the research agenda. What questions remain unanswered? What tools remain unbuilt? What problems require collective attention?

Theoretical questions: The archaeobytological framework developed in this series is foundational but not complete. How should the taxonomy be extended to accommodate edge cases? What additional categories might be needed for emerging artifact types (AI-generated content, blockchain records, ephemeral media)? How does archaeobytological ontology relate to other theoretical frameworks (actor-network theory, new materialism, Indigenous data sovereignty)?

Methodological questions: The protocols outlined in Essay III are starting points rather than final standards. How should protocols be adapted for different artifact types and institutional contexts? What quality assurance mechanisms ensure reliable practice? How can methodological innovations in one tradition be translated for use in others?

Technical questions: What tools does archaeobytological practice require? Format identification, emulation environments, and forensic analysis software exist but are often inadequate or poorly documented as well as difficult to use. What new tools are needed? How can existing tools be improved? How can tool development be coordinated across institutions?

Political questions: Essay IV addressed the politics of digital preservation, but much remains to be done. How can archival justice be operationalized? What legal frameworks support digital sovereignty? How can counter-archival initiatives be scaled and sustained? How should the field engage with platform companies, governments, and international bodies?

The political questions define a research program for the coming decades. The questions require collaboration across traditions, institutions, and nations. The questions require resources (funding, personnel, infrastructure) that the field has not yet secured. The recognition that digital archaeology is archaeobytology is not the end of work but the beginning.

The Institutional Challenge

Finally, recognition poses an institutional challenge. How should archaeobytology be organized? What professional structures support its development?

Currently, digital archaeological practice is scattered across institutions (libraries, archives, museums, computer science departments, media studies programs, forensic laboratories, grassroots collectives). The scattered distribution reflects the field's fragmented history but impedes its future development. A practitioner in a library may not know that a practitioner in a forensic lab is working on similar problems; opportunities for collaboration are missed, wheels are reinvented, standards diverge.

Archaeobytology requires institutional infrastructure: professional associations, journals, conferences, training programs, standards bodies. Some infrastructure exists in fragmentary form (digital preservation conferences and forensic certification programs as well as archival standards committees) but is not coordinated around a shared theoretical framework. Recognition that such efforts share a common foundation in archaeobytology enables coordination.

A single institutional form is not the goal. The field is too diverse, too distributed, and too embedded in existing structures to be reorganized from above. Recognition serves as the goal: practitioners across institutions acknowledge the shared project and build the connective infrastructure (the networks, shared vocabularies, collaborative platforms) that enables coordination without centralization. Archaeobytology is not an institution but a framework; success comes when institutions adopt the framework, not when the framework supplants them.

Part IV: The Definitive Claim

What Digital Archaeology Has Always Been

The synthesis returns, finally, to the definitive claim: digital archaeology is archaeobytology.

The claim is not a proposal but a recognition. The statement does not ask practitioners to change what is done but to understand what has been done. The forensic specialist recovering data from a damaged hard drive is doing archaeobytology. The archivist preserving endangered websites is doing archaeobytology. The media archaeologist theorizing obsolete platforms is doing archaeobytology. The computational archaeologist managing research data is doing archaeobytology. Practitioners have always been doing archaeobytology. Archaeobytology is the name for what practitioners do.

The claim is also normative. Practitioners should recognize that they are doing archaeobytology, because recognition improves practice. The forensic specialist who understands archaeobytological ontology makes better methodological choices. The archivist who knows the Umbrabyte concept documents loss more precisely. The media archaeologist who engages forensic methods produces richer analyses. The computational archaeologist who thinks about formal materiality plans better for long-term data sustainability. Archaeobytology is descriptive and prescriptive; the theory tells practitioners what is being done and how to do the work better.

The Archive and the Anvil

Essay sections have invoked repeatedly the dual methodology of archaeobytology: the Archive and the Anvil.⁸

The Archive is the scholarly function (excavation, preservation, documentation, interpretation). The Archive is humble before evidence, committed to fidelity, and suspicious of speculation. The Archive preserves what the past has left us and makes that evidence available for future investigation. Without the Archive, no heritage exists, only forgetting.

The Anvil is the generative function (creation, intervention, response). The Anvil forges new tools for investigating the past, builds monuments to what has been lost, and creates artifacts that embody archaeobytological knowledge. Active engagement characterizes the Anvil, not passive preservation. The Anvil recognizes that archaeobytology is a scholarly discipline and a practice that shapes the digital world.

The two functions are complementary, not opposed. The Archive provides the evidence base that grounds the Anvil's creations; the Anvil provides the tools and monuments that make the Archive's holdings meaningful. No single function alone is sufficient. Together, the functions constitute the full scope of archaeobytological practice.

Digital archaeology has always been both Archive and Anvil, even when such names were not used. The practitioner who recovers data is doing Archive work; the one who builds an emulator is doing Anvil work; the one who creates a digital monument to a lost platform is doing both. Archaeobytology does not introduce these functions but names them, enabling practitioners to understand the relationship between preservation and creation, and between scholarly rigor and generative engagement.

The Steward's Mandate Revisited

Essay IV concluded with the Steward's Mandate: the ethical commitment that governs archaeobytological practice. The Mandate bears repeating here, for it is the synthesis's normative core.

The archaeobytologist is a steward; one who holds heritage in trust for communities and for the future. Stewardship implies obligations:

To the past: preserve with fidelity, resist the temptation to edit or sanitize, and maintain the integrity of what has been entrusted.

To the present: make heritage accessible, enable investigation and interpretation, and share knowledge rather than hoard it.

To the future: ensure continuity, plan for succession, and build structures that outlast individual careers and institutions.

To communities: respect sovereignty, support community control, and subordinate professional interests to community needs.

Obligations are not external constraints on practice but internal to what archaeobytology is. To do archaeobytology is to accept the Steward's Mandate; to reject the Mandate is to do something other than archaeobytology. The Mandate is not one ethical framework among many but the ethical content of the discipline itself.

Conclusion: The Field Knows Itself

The series began with a question: what is digital archaeology? The series ends with an answer: digital archaeology is archaeobytology.

Digital archaeology as archaeobytology is not a definition imposed from outside but a recognition drawn from within. Archaeobytology articulates what digital archaeological practice has always presupposed: that digital artifacts constitute a distinct ontological class, that such artifacts require conceptual frameworks and investigative methodologies developed specifically for respective distinctive properties, and that preservation and interpretation are matters of cultural urgency and political consequence.

Four essays have developed this articulation. Essay I diagnosed the ontological vacancy at the heart of the field, the lack of a coherent theory of what digital artifacts are. Essay II supplied the missing theory (processual ontology, dual materiality, state-based taxonomy). Essay III translated theory into method (digital stratigraphy, excavation protocols, the challenge of the Liminal Archive). Essay IV situated practice within structures of power and articulated the political commitment of digital sovereignty.

Five essays have drawn the threads together. The concepts are implicit in existing practice. The explicit framework improves practice. The recognition of digital archaeology as archaeobytology has programmatic implications for research, training, and institutional development. The claim is both descriptive and normative: digital archaeology is archaeobytology, and recognizing the identity makes practitioners better at what was already being done.

What remains is the work itself. A theoretical foundation exists. The field must build upon that foundation. The research questions are clear. Practitioners must pursue them. The institutional challenges are defined. The field must meet them. The Steward's Mandate is articulated. Practitioners must honor the Mandate.

Digital archaeology has always been archaeobytology. Now the discipline knows itself. The work begins.