Data recovered!
Although the first reconstruction attempt failed, I succeeded in recovering all the scan data from the southern section of the excavation area by manually loading the support files into a new project and taking them through a new registration process.
I will next use the same approach with the other major sections of the excavation with the hope that I can then merge all five sections into one project.
With this data recovered, I am sure I can build a lidar-based model for the excavation.