An excellent example of the use of technology to map an archaeological site before digging commences can be found in this account of a (so-called) "lost" city in Uzbekistan.
The city was once a likely trade mart - part of the East-west trade network (that some call the Silk Road) that existed across EurAsia.
Quote: "Lost and abandoned for a thousand years, the ancient medieval city of Tashbulak lies buried inches below the close-cropped grass of an isolated pasture high in the mountains of Uzbekistan.
Once a bustling mountain stronghold of the Qarakhanids — a nomadic civilization that conquered and controlled a vast central corridor of the Silk Road trade network — Tashbulak and its inhabitants have remained unknown and overlooked by modern archaeology."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzXH5GbeFbY
Full account from a Washington University in St Louis journal:
https://source.wustl.edu/2017/06/target-excavating-leads-lost-city/
NB: The East West trade network cops a bashing in the Revelation in ch. 18. start reading as Vs 11.