Even by the standards of his day, the fictional archaeologist “Indiana” Jones lacked the proper tools. It is hard, after all, to carefully dig up a shard of pottery and gently brush away dirt from it using a bullwhip. Nonetheless, a more accurately portrayed — albeit less swashbuckling — archaeologist might have performed his job a century ago not much differently than modern investigators, according to Thomas E. Levy, professor of anthropology and Judaic studies at the University of California, San Diego. “We still excavate like our 19th-century predecessors — with shovels, picks and trowels.”

But that tells only part of the story of modern archaeology. “The revolution that has really happened over the last 10 years is the application of this wide range of digital technology, from surveying to digital photography to remote sensing,” said Levy, who is developing digital archaeology tools with the university’s California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology.

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