Three-dimensional (3D) digitization has become a central methodological pillar in cultural heritage documentation, conservation support, and dissemination. Despite the maturity of image-based photogrammetry and active sensing technologies, real-world digitization campaigns frequently diverge from idealized workflows due to constraints related to object accessibility, surface properties, lighting conditions, and operational feasibility. As a result, practitioners are often required to adapt acquisition and processing strategies dynamically, balancing geometric fidelity, visual quality, and practical limitations. This study presents a practice-oriented analysis of applied digitization workflows conducted in controlled indoor and museum environments, focusing on fragile and optically challenging cultural and paleontological objects. Structured light scanning, DSLR-based photogrammetry, and hybrid approaches were systematically explored. While structured light scanning offered high nominal resolution, its performance proved sensitive to material properties and surface behavior, leading to incomplete or unstable reconstructions in several cases. Photogrammetric workflows, when supported by controlled acquisition setups, yielded robust and visually coherent results for the majority of objects. For cases where conventional photogrammetry underperformed, alternative AI-assisted image-based reconstruction pipelines were evaluated as complementary solutions. Rather than emphasizing only successful outcomes, the paper documents recurring failure modes, decision-making trade-offs, and breakdown points across acquisition, alignment, meshing, and texturing stages. Empirical observations are synthesized into qualitative comparisons and decision-support tables, highlighting the conditions under which specific digitization strategies succeed or fail. The findings underscore that hybrid workflows, while theoretically advantageous, can amplify integration complexity and error propagation if not carefully constrained. By foregrounding practical constraints and adaptive methodological choices, this work contributes a transparent, experience-driven perspective on cultural heritage digitization, supporting more resilient planning and informed decision-making in future documentation and conservation projects.

The Middle Awash study area of Ethiopia’s Afar Rift features a composite stratigraphic thickness of >1 km. Near the top of this succession lie sediments of the lower Halibee member, comprising the Faro Daba and Chai Baro beds. The former are radioisotopically dated to ~100,000 y in age and contain abundant fossils and associated lithic artifacts representing the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Geological, paleontological, and archaeological datasets recovered from these sediments enlarge a sparse later Pleistocene record of African human evolution, a time before anatomically modern populations of our species expanded into Eurasia. The Faro Daba occurrences comprise the richest, least disturbed, and most spatially extensive of many open-air MSA-bearing localities in the study area and beyond. Protected atop a resistant underlying conglomerate, the largely horizontal outcrops of the soft, eroding fossiliferous Faro Daba sediments provide spatially extensive access to in situ assemblages of artifacts and fossils. Sedimentology, faunal composition, and combustion features are consistent with a wooded depositional environment with seasonal flooding distant from the main river channel. Archaeological and paleontological assemblages indicate minimal postdepositional disturbance of primary lithic tool manufacture and discard during ephemeral human occupations on this floodplain. Among the recovered fossils are three partial human skeletons with taphonomic evidence of different postmortem pathways.