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Computers and excavation

As indicated above, the data recovered from excavations are often hugely complex, but excavation itself is also a very complex task. When situated within the nexus of data gathering and the realities of excavation practice, e-Research presents both significant challenges and great opportunities. Digital methods have been integrated with excavation practice at a low level for many years. For example, it is common practice for excavators to take the points of particular positions from a Total Station Theodolite (TST), place these in a local data store, and download them to a computer for processing back at base. However, the ubiquity of networked systems, along with the availability of (often proprietary) software such as ArchaeoData, has meant that e-Research technologies are now being more widely applied in field archaeology. In many cases, this has ‘only’ meant speeding up and/or facilitating existing work; allowing for the documentation of objects and their contexts and transferral of this information to the excavation’s database faster and more efficiently. In essence, many of the software packages are database-oriented, aiming to support excavation directors and post-excavation researchers in organizing and structuring the site’s data according to existing organizing principles and structures.

Some projects however have considered in greater depth the intellectual and interpretive implications of using such technology, thereby addressing Carver’s ‘relevance to creative archaeology’ critique. Ian Hodder for example has reflected on the implications of separating observation from interpretation, and noted that ‘[i]nterpretation occurs at the trowel’s edge. And yet, perhaps because of the technologies available to deal with very large sets of data, we have as archaeologists separated excavation methods out and seen them as prior to interpretation. Modern data-management systems perhaps allow some resolution of the contradiction. At any rate, it is time it was faced and dealt with’ (Hodder 1997: 693). Hodder’s own response to this problem, the online site database of the Çatalhöyük project ( (External Link) ), seeks to present fully and simply all the data about the site, including the free text interpretations of the recorders.

An archaeological project frequently referenced in the literature is the Roman urban excavation of Silchester in Hampshire, which has trialled the use of e-Research technologies in the Virtual Research Environment for Archaeology (VERA: see (External Link) , also case study at (External Link) ) project in conjunction with its existing Integrated Archaeological Database (http://www.iadb.co.uk/). VERA, funded under JISC’s VRE programme, has tested use of a broadband network at the site and various onsite digital capture methods. Those used earlier in the project, such as PDAs and tablet PCs for recording information about artefacts and plans of trenches and features, proved less successful for a variety of reasons (a major one being that liquid screens perform badly in bright sunlight). Currently however, the project is trialling the use of digital pens for recording information. This follows exactly the procedure for recording information using ‘normal’ pens, with the exception that users can ‘dock’ the digital variety at the end of the working day, downloading handwriting and converting it to ASCII text using automated handwriting recognition. The VERA project has noted that integrating such technologies with existing onsite workflows is critical if they are to stand any chance of wider adoption (see Warwick at. al. 2009 for full discussion). This greatly speeds up and facilitates the process of entering the data into the IADB; and it may well be that, as the method is further refined and deployed in the field, it will provide some hitherto unforeseen contribution to understanding the data as well.

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Source:  OpenStax, Research in a connected world. OpenStax CNX. Nov 22, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col10677/1.12
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