CARARE's annual meeting and the 30th European Association of Archaeologists’ (EAA) Annual conference were held from 28 to 31 August 2024 in Rome. Several members and CARARE's team participated.
CARARE's annual meeting took place on the 28th August at the offices of the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico delle biblioteche e delle informazioni bibliografiche (ICCU). We were warmly welcomed at the offices and much appreciated the help from ICCU's team in setting up for our meeting. During the meeting we had presentations from Ivan Erhel (The Fact Stories) on the Tech4Heritage project, Kate Fernie (CARARE) giving an update on the European Data Space for Cultural Heritage, and from Anthony Corns (Discovery Programme) and Alberto Sanchez (University of Jaen) about their work in the 5DCulture project.
The final session of the meeting was CARARE's formal business meeting, our AGM where we presented the finance and business reports, elected the committee and discussed plans for the coming year. Following the successful completion of the meeting several of us adjourned to a nearby restaurant to continue talking and to celebrate our first evening in Rome.
The next day, 29th August, marked the start of the EAA conference for us. EAA is a huge conference with multiple parallel sessions spread across the campus at La Sapienza University of Rome. The session organised by Kate Fernie (CARARE) and Anthony Corns (Discovery Programme) 'Making Connections: Towards Archaeological Narratives in Contemporary Society" ran in the afternoon. After dipping in to various sessions in the morning, we found the room for our afternoon session - and were very thankful to find it was air-conditioned!
The session was well attended. We heard presentations from Rimvydas Lauzikas (Vilnius University, CARARE member) on archaeology data, Milica Tapavicki-Ilic (Institute of Archaeology, Belgrade) on communicating excavation data, Alberto Sanchez (University of Jaen, CARARE member) on 3D archaeology heritage in education, Catherine Anne Cassidy (University of St Andrews, CARARE member) on virtual landscapes and communities, Kate Fernie and Henk Alkemade (CARARE) on interoperability for 3D and other media, Anthony Corns (Discovery Programme) on improving the quality of 3D data, Alan Miller (University of St Andrews) on engaging with climate change, Nicholas Nilsson (Kalmar County Museum) on archaeological tools for documentation, Sharon Pisani (University of St Andrews) reimagining Pictish heritage and finally Mirian Erkell (Arkeologerna SHM) on immersive 3D reconstruction as a tool for processing and mediating archaeological data.
