Abstract
What if the "final publication" of a site, feature, or assemblage didn't have to be final? Most archaeologists will tell you that even though excavations stop and analysis and writing begin, the stories we tell in archaeology are rarely final. Ironically, final excavation volumes in archaeology often carry with them a sense of authority and completion-large, heavy, cloth tomes numbered and lined up in a row bespeak the ultimate culmination of work. And yet, subsequent study, discovery, and consideration (not only of the publications, but also the data themselves when made available) almost always challenge previous conclusions. As archaeological projects replace or supplementtraditional,analogue systemsof data recording with tools that produce new types of born-digital data in the field, new models for how these data are collected, analyzed, and archived offer a chance to rethink how we disrupt the seemingly definitive nature of the final publication, as well as increase public access to archaeological data. In particular,3D modeling in archaeology, at multiple scales from artifact to landscape, is transforming how we document and visualize material culture, but it is also changing how we collect, store, and disseminate this information. The following essay offers a first-hand look at how one archaeological project (the Athienou Archaeological Project on Cyprus) decided to rethink the definition of "final" and contribute to the growing discourse surrounding 3D visualization, archaeological publication, archival data, and access.