2026 Agenda
Minutes from 2025 AGM
CAA 2028 Bid – Cologne
National Chapter Proposals
We are excited to have two new proposed national chapters, Austria and Japan. These will be voted on at the AGM, and their consitutions can be found below.
CAA Austria
CAA Japan
Special Interest Group Proposals
CAA Robotics, Sensors, and Embedded Systems in Archaeology (SIG-RSE)
The proposed SIG will focus on the applications of hardware automation, embedded systems, and sensors in archaeology. These technologies are reshaping archaeological fieldwork, data collection, and heritage monitoring, and are becoming increasingly influential in archaeological knowledge production. An in-depth, critical perspective is therefore necessary to use these systems and their workflows effectively.
From (semi-)autonomous survey platforms and unscrewed vehicles (e.g. drones, ground rovers, robotic total stations) to low-power embedded systems and devices (e.g. heritage-monitoring sensors, network communication devices, environmental loggers, LiDAR systems, geophysical sensors), this SIG will serve as a community hub for archaeologists and technologists interested in advancing these hardware technologies while maintaining a critical outlook.
Within archaeology, potential applications include:
- Field survey and excavation: ground rovers and drones for feature detection, mapping and logistics.
- Site monitoring and conservation: embedded IoT sensors for detecting humidity, soil movement, erosion, or visitor impact.
- Data capture and sensing: integration of sensors onto custom ground and aerial platforms.
- Heritage interpretation and outreach: robotic or sensor-driven outreach activities
- Mobile HPC, edge computing and on-site real-time processing: deploying lightweight models directly on embedded devices in the field.
- Mobile HPC
- Embodied learning: combining the role of machines in automation software while emphasizing the importance of hardware and sensors in (embodied) learning
The SIG acknowledges the growing ethical dimensions of these technologies. AI and autonomous systems are increasingly used in domains such as surveillance and armed conflict so progress with lack of self-reflexivity has the potential to contribute non-civilian sectors.AI-driven analysis of archaeological data may expose sensitive heritage sites to looting or exploitation while disregarding the views and stances of indigenous, local, and tribal communities. All-in-all, SIG-RSE will promote open discussion of such issues and encourage responsible innovation, transparency, and protective data practices.
This SIG sits squarely within the remit of CAA, extending computational and quantitative methods into hardware and systems that make digital archaeology more autonomous, responsive, and scalable.
Planned Activities
The SIG will serve as a platform for discussion, collaboration, and dissemination of research and practice related to (semi-) autonomous systems, robotics, sensor integration, and embedded electronics in archaeology. Planned activities include:
- Conference contributions: organising SIG-specific paper sessions, roundtables, and practical demonstrations at CAA conferences.
- Workshops and tutorials: hands-on sessions covering topics such as building low-cost sensors, integrating robotics with archaeological workflows, and running real-time edge applications.
- Roundtables: organizing roundtables and discussion sessions to critically explore the ethics, politics and philosophy of these tools and technologies
- Collaborative open-source platform: maintaining a GitHub organisation for sharing reproducible hardware/software designs, protocols, and case studies.
- Community-building events: hosting hackathons or “design sprints” around archaeological robotics and sensor challenges, encouraging collaboration between archaeologists, engineers, and data scientists.
- Outreach and cross-community networking: establishing links with researchers and practitioners from engineering, computer science, and robotics communities, co-organising events or joint sessions at relevant technical conferences and encouraging cross-participation to bring new expertise into archaeology.
- Ongoing engagement: establishing mailing lists, forums, and potentially virtual seminar series to share progress and foster international collaboration.
These activities are designed not only to align with the aims of CAA but also to introduce novel forms of collaboration and reproducibility into archaeological computing.
Coordinators
- Sohini Mallick (current CAA member) – Research Engineer @ Barcelona Supercomputing Centre; Electronics and Communication Engineering background, research in Digital Archaeology and AI applications.
- Tuna Kalaycı (current CAA member) – Assistant Professor @ Department of Archaeological Sciences, Leiden University; quantification, landscape archaeology, automation, critical approaches
Summary
SIG-RSE will provide a much-needed community of practice within CAA dedicated to robotics, sensors, and embedded systems in archaeology. By consolidating expertise and encouraging interdisciplinary dialogue, the SIG will help to advance methodological innovation and ensure that archaeologists are well equipped to engage with rapidly evolving technologies.
Digital Rock Art Research
During the last decades the research of rock art, as well as other forms of artistic expression in ancient societies, increasingly shifted towards digital and computational methods. These methods comprise a wide range of approaches and techniques along with their respective theoretical considerations. Methods cover well-established geospatial analysis of the context of rock art, computational and quantitative analysis (including AI approaches) of rock art production, and extended reality (XR) applications for cultural heritage and engagement. On both the local- and the large-scale, digital and computational methods play an important role in understanding rock art today. While there are several international groups focusing on special aspects of regional rock art (e.g. Australian rock art, southern African rock art, Palaeolithic European rock art), to our knowledge a group dealing with digital methods in rock art research does not yet exist. Such a group focusing more on digital than traditional methods enables the development of new workflows for documentation and data sharing that improve our understanding of the location, creation, and consumption of rock art.
Proposed activities
For the last two years we have held sessions at CAA International, centered around the digital and computational research of rock art. (2025: S 44 – Digital and computational methods in the studies of rock art and ancient art: beyond tracing the past, 2026: S 8 – Digital methods in rock art research II. Connecting People: reconstructing the contexts of past visual communication systems). National chapters, such as CAA Norge, have also held sessions for rock art research. These activities demonstrate that there will be international participation in the Special Interest Group.
Building on this we would like to form a Special Interest Group within CAA for:
- Establishing a network of rock art researchers using computational or quantitative methods in rock art research for knowledge exchange
- Running sessions at CAA conferences more regularly (at least every 2 years)
- Advancing digital and computer-aided methods in rock art research
- Including theoretical frameworks in digital documentation and analysis of rock art
- Enabling researchers (from other archaeology subdisciplines) to adequately document rock art
- Highlighting rock art as valuable cultural heritage assets
- Hosting (digital) meetings with the SIG members and other interested parties
SIG organization
The initial SIG committee will consist of the organizers of the last two sessions at CAA:
Ashely Green, Eymard Fäder, Oliver Vogels, Paolo Medici, Rebecca Döhl