Digital Archiving in Archaeology: The State of the Art. Introduction (original) (raw)

Internet Archaeology, 2021

Abstract

The advent of ubiquitous computing has created a golden age for archaeological researchers and participating publics, but the price is a digital resource that is now in jeopardy. The archaeological record, in digital form, is at risk not simply from obsolescence and media failure, but the domain is also unable to fully participate in Open Data. Without swift and informed consensus and intervention, archaeology will lose the majority of its research data legacy and capacity to a digital Dark Age. It faces a number of challenges, distinct from those encountered in other domains: Many forms of archaeological research (including excavation) destroy the cultural resource, and the recorded observations become the primary record, derived from non-repeatable documentation; Archaeological data is often born-digital, and there are no paper surrogates for the primary record derived, for example, from the use of mobile devices on site, geophysical surveys or logging of experimental data by analytical laboratory equipment; Archaeological researchers are particularly creative and innovative in their methodologies; adopting, adapting and developing novel techniques and approaches, and requiring stewardship of a wide range of data formats, and more complex understandings of data reuse, but often lacking the proper workflow and data policy found in other sciences.

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