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Internet Archaeology 15: Archaeological informatics:
Title
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Title:
Internet Archaeology 15: Archaeological informatics:
Subtitle
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Subtitle:
beyond technology
Series
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Series:
Internet Archaeology
Volume
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Volume:
15
Licence Type
ADS, CC-BY 4.0 or CC-BY 4.0 NC.
Licence Type:
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
International Licence
Publication Type
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Publication Type:
Journal
Editor
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Editor:
Judith Winters
Issue Editor
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Issue Editor:
Seamus Ross
Jeremy W Huggett
Year of Publication
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Year of Publication:
2004
Subjects / Periods
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Subjects / Periods:
Computers (BIAB)
Note
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Note:
Is Portmanteau:1Date Of Coverage From:01Date Of Coverage To:01
Source
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Source:
BIAB (The British & Irish Archaeological Bibliography (BIAB))
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URI:
http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue15/index.html
Created Date
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Created Date:
14 Apr 2004
Please click on an Article link to go to the Article Details.
Article Title
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Abstract
Preface: Digital Dissemination and Archiving
David Miles
Discussion on the development of integrated digital publication in archaeology and English Heritage initiatives in digital archiving and dissemination of data.
Introduction
Jeremy W Huggett
Seamus Ross
The authors examine the impact of information technologies archaeology, and the ways in which they are changing the theory and practice of archaeology itself. These ideas were explored in the `Beyond Technology' workshop at which the papers included in this issue were first presented
The past in bits: towards an archaeology of information technology?
Jeremy W Huggett
This article argues that archaeologists have shown relatively little concern for the social, cultural, and economic changes in modern society associated with the introduction of new information technologies, despite our interest in such developments in past societies. As a consequence, there has been little discussion of the ways in which the application of information technologies may affect the practice of archaeology itself. Aspects investigated here include the 'scientific' reductionist processual approaches typically associated with the use of computers, the language and community of archaeological computing practitioners, the effects of distance and agents, issues of data recording and retrieval, and the implications of internet delivery of information. In the process, data may be wrenched from context, argument separated from evidence, interpretations transformed into 'facts', explicit knowledge separated from tacit knowledge, and push-button solutions substituted for knowledgeable actions.Note: The article is presented in essentially the same form as it was pre-circulated prior to the workshop, other than minor corrections. However, in order to reflect on discussions that took place and to clarify some issues that arose, additional sections have been added throughout the text. These are broadly equivalent to footnotes in a traditional publication, but are here embedded in the body of the text and are hidden or revealed by the reader as desired. The reader can therefore see both the original paper as it was pre-circulated prior to the workshop, and the post-workshop version with additional reflections. The intention is thereby to provide a more historical perspective to the development of the ideas and arguments within the paper.
`The storm of progress' and archaeology for an online public
Kathryn Denning
The article looks at the nature of readers and readership in relation to the presentation of archaeology online. It identifies a need for information about how people access online information, and the development of best practice guidelines for archaeological online writing
The future of electronic scholarship
Cornelius Holtorf
This paper about the future of electronic scholarship takes the form of a commentary about my experiences with publishing an electronic monograph. An earlier version of that work was originally submitted to the University of Wales as a hypermedia Doctoral dissertation in archaeology. I will discuss to what extent (if any) the electronic and multilinear format of my work proved valuable in challenging and advancing some foundations of current academic discourse. A key question is how academic credibility can be maintained, while at the same time pioneering some radical possibilities of electronic scholarship. It emerges that the criteria for this credibility are themselves at stake.The paper is divided into three main parts. After a short introduction , I will first review three ways in which I originally thought that the hypermedia format would allow clear benefits for academic writing and discourse, and how I see them now. They refer to intertextuality, the open-ended 'living' text, and multilinearity in writing and argument. Then I will review the main problems which I originally thought might be difficult to reconcile with contemporary academic discourse, and discuss to what extent they indeed turned out to be obstacles. These include screen reading, orientation and navigation issues, and the problem of long-term preservation. Finally, I will turn to the issue of academic publishing and how electronic scholarship may be able to help it become more satisfactory by dissolving existing ties to commercial interests.
Databases
Nick Ryan
Databases are deeply embedded in archaeology, underpinning and supporting many aspects of the subject. However, as well as providing a means for storing, retrieving and modifying data, databases themselves must be a result of a detailed analysis and design process. This article looks at this process, and shows how the characteristics of data models affect the process of database design and implementation. The impact of the Internet on the development of databases is examined, and the article concludes with a discussion of a range of issues associated with the recording and management of archaeological data.
Mathematical modelling
Clive Orton
The field of mathematical modelling is long established in archaeology, and since the 1970s has been frequently associated with computing through the development of increasingly complex methodologies ranging from large-scale simulations to Bayesian statistics. This article looks at the background and use of these models, and asks why there has been an apparent downturn in their use. A distrinction between 'tactical' and 'strategic' models is drawn, and number of areas of future development identified.
Sites and Monuments Records and Historic Environment Records in England: is Cinderella finally going to the ball?
Paul Gilman
In the past, SMRs have all too often been cast as the Cinderellas of British Archaeology — underfunded, inconsistent, unreliable and difficult to use. Recent events indicate that this picture is changing, and changing fast. The paper discusses the recent changes and how these are affecting SMRs' use of computing, and concludes by an attempt to chart some trends for the future, notably the impending change of SMRs to broader-based Historic Environment Records (HERs).The most recent assessment of SMRs in England by David Baker (1999) has shown that, since the first SMRs emerged in the 1970s, their development across the country has been uneven and often on an ad hoc basis. However, recent years have seen rapid development in the field of SMRs and there are some encouraging signs that the future progress of SMRs may be different. SMRs are aspiring to cover a wide range of material, from artefacts to landscapes, and there are increasing moves towards providing greater access to this information in more creative ways. The article examines the current trend towards greater integration of information about the historic environment, through widening the scope of SMRs or linking them to other systems. Finally, the article looks at the need for more academic use of SMRs and provides some suggestions how this might be achieved.
National inventories: from catalogues to computers
Diana Murray
This article reviews the development of online national archaeological records, and the changes brought about by the shift in focus towards computer-based inventories and their wider accessibility through the Internet. It identifies a series of issues that have arisen at least partly as a result of this wider dissemination of information, and proposes a number of ways forward.(Note: while including references to the NMRs in England and Wales, this article largely reflects the experiences and concepts of the National Monuments Record of Scotland).
Online archives
Julian D Richards
Online archives are of increasing importance in Archaeological Informatics, but like any new genre they prompt a number of questions. What is their relationship to publication? What should go in them? How should they be delivered and indexed? Can they be preserved? Whilst their delivery requires technology, we must also consider how that technology should best be employed in the service of our discipline. This article attempts to address some of these questions but it need not be read from start to finish. The links from this summary provide one fairly linear route through the text but each section is self-contained and can also be accessed directly from the Contents page.The problems posed by effective publication of archaeological fieldwork have exercised the profession for many decades. The issues raised go to the core of discussion of whether preservation by record is a valid concept, and indeed whether archaeological data exist. There are different schools of thought about the relationship between publication and archiving, but hopefully we can accept that data are recorded observations but still agree that they have a re-use value for re-examination and re-interpretation.Since the 1960s archaeology has experienced a publication crisis point. The scenario is familiar. Excavation is destruction; it is an unrepeatable experiment and the archaeologist has a professional obligation to make a full and accessible record of his/her observations. Yet full publication is increasingly expensive and difficult, and excavation monographs are read by few people, and bought by even fewer. In England the development of post-PPG16 fieldwork has exacerbated the problem by creating a mountain of unpublished grey literature and making the work of synthesis even harder; a similar situation exists in other countries. Meanwhile museum archives are also reaching breaking point; most are running out of storage space, few can provide facilities for access, and almost all report low levels of usage.Digital technology now offers the means by which the crisis may at last be overcome. It provides an opportunity to provide unprecedented access to archaeological data through online digital archives and to integrate synthetic interpretation with recorded observations in a seamless fashion, in a way which has been pioneered by Internet Archaeology. It may even allow a virtual re-integration of the paper and artefactual archives, which in the British Isles have become physically separated. However, the growth of the World Wide Web brings with it its own problems of locating relevant resources of quality which need addressing by effective indexing and access. Such resources need not be brought together in a central place but can instead be searched across distributed sites. On the other hand, if we maintain archives at a local level we must be aware of problems of data integrity. The trend for archaeological data to be captured and held in digital format, and even to be born digital raises issues of data preservation.This article is based on the experiences gained and lessons learned during the development of the Archaeology Data Service over the last five years, presented here as a case study which links each of the above themes. It is clear that we need to plan for data re-use, and that archiving must be considered at the outset of a project, not just regarded as an afterthought once the final publication proofs have been checked, and that we must provide adequate documentation to allow re-users to understand the context of our recorded observations, rather than pretending that data can be divorced from the observer. This inevitably has a cost, but our profession has long played lip service to the importance of the structured and ordered archive, without necessarily doing anything about it. We must also train future generations of archaeologists to apply skills of source criticism in their use of archival sources and, as the distinction between archiving and publication becomes blurred and both are seen as part of the dissemination strategy for our discoveries, we must ensure that adequate academic and professional credit is given for both. Finally, the assistance of numerous others who have contributed to the ADS and the development of online archives is also acknowledged.
Remote sensing and geophysical prospection
Armin Schmidt
In archaeological prospection, computer processing is essential for all stages of data manipulation. This article investigates the contributions which informatics has made in the past and looks at its potential for the future. It is shown how the workflow of satellite imagery, aerial photography and geophysical prospection can be broken down into measurements, acquisition, processing, visualisation and interpretation. Based on these categories, the advantages of digital data manipulations are explored with individual examples. It is shown that informatics can greatly assist with the final archaeological analysis of the measurements but that human experience and assessments are crucial for a meaningful interpretation.
Making space for an archaeology of place
David Wheatley
Rather than attempt to write a balanced or complete overview of the application of GIS to archaeology (which would inevitably end up being didactic and uncritical) this article sets out to present a discursive and contentious position with the deliberate aim of stimulating further debate about the future role of GIS within our discipline.To this end, existing applications of GIS to archaeology are reviewed, concentrating on two areas of application, predictive modelling and visibility analyses, and on their wider disciplinary context. It is argued that GIS cannot be simplistically held to have been a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing' for archaeology, but rather that these different application areas may be analysed separately and found to have quite different qualities. Although they are in no sense alternatives to one another, the areas of predictive modelling and visibility analysis can be seen to represent quite different agendas for the development of an archaeology of space and/or place.The development of correlative predictive models is considered first, both from the perspective of explanation and of cultural resource management. The arguments against predictive modelling as a means of explanation are rehearsed and it is found to be over-generalising, deterministic and de-humanised. As a consequence, it is argued that predictive modelling is now essentially detached from contemporary theoretical archaeological concerns. Moreover, it is argued to be an area with significant unresolved methodological problems and, far more seriously, that it presents very real dangers for the future representativity of archaeological records.Second, the development of GIS-based visibility analysis is reviewed. This is also found to be methodologically problematic and incomplete. However, it is argued that visibility studies — in direct contrast to predictive modelling — have remained firmly situated within contemporary theoretical debates, notably about how human actors experience places (phenomenology) and perceive their surroundings (cognition). As such, it is argued that visibility analysis has the potential to continue to contribute positively to the wider development of archaeological thinking, notably through laying the foundations of a human-centred archaeology of space.The paper concludes by qualifying the claim that there is a 'hidden agenda' for archaeological applications of GIS (Wheatley 1993), particularly by making it clear that this does not imply an attempt to distort the discipline. Instead, this is explained in terms of institutional and disciplinary inertia that should be addressed through greater debate and communication over these issues.
A manufactured past: virtual reality in archaeology
Glyn Goodrick
Graeme Earl
Virtual reality and visualisation technologies developed over the past thirty years have been readily accessible to the archaeological community since the mid 1990s. Despite the high profile of virtual archaeology (Reilly 1991) both within the media and professional archaeology it has not been taken on board as a generally useful and standard technique by archaeologists. In this article we wish to discuss the technical and other issues which have resulted in a reluctance to adopt virtual archaeology and, more importantly, discuss ways forward that can enable us routinely to benefit from this technology in the diversity of archaeological practice.