We are excited to announce Session 29: AI Across the Heritage Pipeline – From Algorithms through Fieldwork to Deliverables, which will take place at the Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA) Conference 2026 in Vienna.
📅 Abstract submission deadline: 26 October 2025
🔗 Submit your abstract
📜 Full list of sessions (see S29)
About the Session
Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly touches every stage of the archaeological process, from field data collection and documentation, to analysis, interpretation, and the delivery of results. Yet AI’s role is often siloed into specific tasks, without considering how these tools integrate across the entire heritage pipeline.
This session explores how AI methods can support and transform archaeology when viewed holistically. It asks how algorithms can interact with traditional practices, where automation is beneficial (or not), and what implications arise when AI outputs are integrated into research, policy, and public communication.
Suggested Topics
Submissions may address (but are not limited to):
- AI-supported field recording and survey methods
- Automated analysis of archaeological datasets across multiple scales
- Integration of AI outputs into interpretation and reporting
- Deliverables shaped by AI: from publications to digital repositories
- Evaluation of workflow efficiency, reproducibility, and transparency
- Ethical and practical considerations of embedding AI into heritage practice
Why Participate?
This session encourages contributors to connect the dots across the heritage workflow, showing how AI is not just a technical add-on but part of a broader ecosystem of archaeological knowledge-making.
It directly aligns with the aims of the MAIA COST Action, which seeks to understand AI’s role in archaeology in a comprehensive, responsible, and critically engaged way. By participating, you will help highlight best practices and identify gaps for future development across the heritage pipeline.
Session Organisers
- Thomas Huet (CNRS–ENS Paris)
- Arkadiusz Marciniak (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań)
- Caterina Giovénale (Sapienza University of Rome)
- David Stott (Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research)