Metodologías asumidas. Retrospectiva de las “novedades digitales"
Bea, M.; Angás, J. (2024). “Metodologías asumidas. Retrospectiva de las “novedades digitales”, en Angás, J., Bea, M., Juste, M. N. (Eds.) Documentación y conservación del arte rupestre: artes prehistóricos y perspectivas presentes, ISBN 978-84-09-61314-4, pp. 35-46.
For over two decades, we have referred to “digital innovations” as those technological applications
that have emerged since the beginning of the 21st century, demonstrating a significant impact on
research and societal transfer. This factor has been leveraged by contemporary society, which demands
technological swiftness with an increasingly narrow timeframe for justifying investments
and their immediate applicability in both science and social transfer. Often, immediate applicability
is presupposed to lead to greater scientific success, thereby confusing expected outcomes with the
processes employed and their degree of hyper-technologization.
At this juncture, we must ask, once we have surpassed the peak of inflated expectations of emerging
technologies, whether we have achieved the anticipated goals by redefining a methodological
framework among managers, researchers, and professionals with an effective universal language of
procedures and metadata.
This contribution focuses on the kindness of digital application on rock art studies during the last
20 years, updating its consideration by including those so-called Digital Twins. Nevertheless, despite
the technological improvements they provide (quality, accuracy, texture or realism), the need
to establish a sincere reflection is remarked. This consideration should go beyond technology and
methodology in order not to overlook the essential aim of these studies: to recognize the societies
that created prehistoric rock art.
For over two decades, we have referred to “digital innovations” as those technological applications
that have emerged since the beginning of the 21st century, demonstrating a significant impact on
research and societal transfer. This factor has been leveraged by contemporary society, which demands
technological swiftness with an increasingly narrow timeframe for justifying investments
and their immediate applicability in both science and social transfer. Often, immediate applicability
is presupposed to lead to greater scientific success, thereby confusing expected outcomes with the
processes employed and their degree of hyper-technologization.
At this juncture, we must ask, once we have surpassed the peak of inflated expectations of emerging
technologies, whether we have achieved the anticipated goals by redefining a methodological
framework among managers, researchers, and professionals with an effective universal language of
procedures and metadata.
This contribution focuses on the kindness of digital application on rock art studies during the last
20 years, updating its consideration by including those so-called Digital Twins. Nevertheless, despite
the technological improvements they provide (quality, accuracy, texture or realism), the need
to establish a sincere reflection is remarked. This consideration should go beyond technology and
methodology in order not to overlook the essential aim of these studies: to recognize the societies
that created prehistoric rock art.