Tag Archives | Humanities

The Archaeology Data Service, keeping the Grey Literature Library going

By Ray Moore on July 4, 2012 in Commercial Archaeology, Community Archaeology, Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Digital Archaeology, Education, Excavation, Finds, Periods, Survey

Welcome to another post to the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) Day of Archaeology blog 2012

If you want a quick introduction to the ADS and what we do see last year’s post.

We have contributions from two members of staff from the ADS this year, one from Stuart Jeffrey ADS deputy Director (Access) and this one from Ray Moore one of the ADS Digital Archivists.

As a digital archivist at the Archaeology Data Service, my day to day activities involve the accessioning the digital data and other outcomes of archaeological research that individuals and institutions deposit with us, developing a preservation programme for that data, but also curating existing ADS collections.

Today, and indeed for the past week, I have spent much of my time working on the Grey Literature Library (or GLL). The GLL is an important resource for those amateur and professional archaeologists working in archaeology today providing access to the many thousands of unpublished fieldwork reports, or grey literature, produced during the various assessments, surveys and fieldwork carried out throughout the country. These activities are recorded using OASIS (or Online AccesS to the Index of archaeological investigationS) and after passing through a process of validation and checking the reports produced in these projects arrive at the ADS. On first impressions then the digital archive may seem like an ‘end point’, a place where archaeological grey literature goes to die, but the ADS, through the GLL, makes these reports available to other archaeologists and the wider community allowing the grey literature to inform future research. At the same time as a digital archive we take steps to preserve these reports so that future generations can continue to use the information that they contain; an important job as many of these reports do not exist in a printed form.

Reports from the Grey Literature Library.

So what does digitally archiving a grey literature report entail? Initially all the grey literature reports must be transferred from OASIS to the ADS archive; the easiest part of the process. More often than not the report comes in a Portable Document Format (or PDF) form, and while this is useful for sharing documents electronically it is pretty useless as preservation format for archiving. One of my jobs is to convert these files into a special archival form of PDF, called PDF/A (the A standing for Archive). Sound’s easy, but often it can take some work to get from PDF to PDF/A (my all time record is 2 hours producing a 900mb PDF/A file). These conversions must also be documented in the ADS’ Collection Management System so that other archivists can see what I did to the file to preserve the file and its content. While OASIS collects metadata associated with project, the ADS uses a series of tools to generate file level metadata specific to the creation of the file, so that we can understand what and how the file was created. Only once these processes are complete can the file be transferred to the archive, with a version also added to the GLL so that people can download and read the report. With a through flow of some 5 to 600 reports per month the difficulties of the task should become apparent; and all this alongside my other duties as a digital archivist. This month’s release includes an interesting report on The Olympic Park Waterways and Associated Built Heritage Structures which stood on the site now occupied by the Olympic Park. Anyway I’d better get back to it!

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Lights, Camera, Action!

By Project Florence on July 2, 2012 in Anglo-Saxon, Community Archaeology, Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Film Making

My Day of Archaeology 2012 has been an exciting one, as my volunteers arrived on site for the first time, not to dig, but to make a movie.

I am the lucky archaeologist leading Project Florence, a community project aiming to get local residents involved in spreading the word about an exciting army excavation taking place on Salisbury Plain. This excavation is part of Operation Nightingale, a rehabilitation programme for wounded soldiers.

One of our key aims for the project is for volunteers to produce a DVD about the excavation as a record of the dig and to provide a legacy for Operation Nightingale. The volunteers, aged between 14 and 25, are being trained by professional film-makers to plan, film and edit the movie, which will be premiered at the Salisbury Arts Centre (SAC) in November.

Today was the first day of filming on site, following training sessions at SAC last week, and we were all eager to start catching the action. As I have no experience of movie-production, I am making the most of the chance to learn some new skills along with my volunteers. We are all working towards an Arts Award certificate.

We started our after-school training session with the basics, running over the things we learnt last week like how to frame the shot and how to find the best angle. Our ever-patient instructors, Jamie and Simon, explained that we need to take a mixture of interviews and ‘pretty pictures’ to stick together in the edit. So, we set about filming wide shots of trench activity, interviews with the archaeologists and soldiers, and close ups of interesting finds, so far including an Anglo-Saxon brooch and some amber beads. Our highlight of the day was getting to film one of the soldiers, Al, and his son Ben, lifting the most complete skeleton on site so far.

At the end of a busy two hours, I asked the group what they thought of the session:

“I found the archaeology interesting and liked learning about excavation and watching the skeleton being lifted.” Matt, 17

“I really enjoyed learning to use the sound equipment today, especially the boom. I can’t wait to put all our shots together to make the DVD!” Jess, 15

To find out more about both Project Florence and Operation Nightingale check out our blog – click here

Laura Joyner

Project Florence Officer

Wessex Archaeology

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The Archaeology Data Service, Working to Keep Your Bits in Good Order

By ADS on June 29, 2012 in Commercial Archaeology, Community Archaeology, Digital Archaeology, Education, Periods, Science

Welcome to the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) Day of Archaeology blog 2012

If you want a quick introduction to the ADS and what we do see last year’s post.

We have contributions from two members of staff from the ADS this year, one from Stuart Jeffrey ADS deputy Director (Access) and one from Ray Moore one of the ADS Digital Archivists.

Stuart Jeffrey

Another busy day at the ADS today, lots of looming deadlines and lots of work to be done. Since the last Day of Archaeology the ADS has continued to expand its collections and participate in more and more national and international projects, which is great news and it certainly keeps us out of mischief. In terms of recognition for ADS’s work, it’s actually been a very good year too, the ADS was a major part of the submission that got the University of York’s Department of Archaeology a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education and we are also short listed for a BAA award for innovation (to be announced on 9^th July, so fingers crossed!).

The project that is occupying most of my time today is the Economic Impact of the ADS project. The ADS is a free to access digital archive, but it’s really important to us, and funders, that we have a good idea of what the actual economic value to the whole sector of the ADS actually is, so we have embarked on a JISC funded project to try and find out, it’s no easy task to try and put numbers on this kind of ‘value perception’. I’m preparing for a meeting with John Houghton the Professor of Economics (from CSES in Australia) who is carrying out the analysis for the project in Oxford on Monday. This will be our first meeting since the on-line survey of users and depositors will have closed and I’m really looking forward to seeing the responses. (BTW is closes tonight so if you want to participate there is probably a bit of time left, follow the project link above).

A nice image from the ADS archive, Cloonsharragh, Ireland, Copyright Clive Ruggles, image taken from ADS ImageBank

Also today, I’m also putting the finishing touches to a joint application, with Internet Archaeology, for an IfA HLF work place learning bursary. We have hosted a couple of these in the past and have always enjoyed the experience of giving someone the opportunity to bring on their skills in a work place environment. We also think there is still a skills gap in the archaeological work force when it comes to digital data management, especially the complexities of digital archiving, and managing data and understanding archiving should really be core skills for archaeologists.

I’d also like to mention the fact that the ADS are proud to support the Day of Archaeology. We’ve been really impressed with the response to the Day of Archaeology project in general and the way a ‘snapshot’ of archaeological activity has been built up covering all sectors including academic, commercial, fieldworkers, specialists, students and curators. As well as fulfilling its role of information sharing and community building amongst the profession, it is also clear that the snapshot created on this one day in 2012 could well become a valuable document for the historians of the archaeological discipline in the future. With this in mind, the ADS are keen to help archive these contributions for the long term. Everyone’s contributions today could well be part of a future research project in 2112!

Finally, as we near the end of the month it’s time for me to change the ‘featured collection’ section of the ADS front page. Ray has been busy archiving and validating a lot of Grey Literature reports, our total is now over 17,000 I think, and some of these relate to archaeological work done in advance of the construction work at the Olympic sites in London. Given that the Olympics are nearly upon us it seems a good idea to make the major MoLAS report (533 pages!) on this work the featured collection for July, very topical. Topicality is not always something that easy to manage when dealing with archaeological archives, but we like to give it a try.

Details of Ray’s Day to follow…….

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Decisions decisions …

By Henriette Roued-Cunliffe on June 29, 2012 in Day of Archaeology, DayOfArch2012, Digital Archaeology

This morning my first point of call is my presentation for the Digital Humanities 2012 conference in Hamburg in 3 weeks time. I am really looking forward to this conference as it will be my first after Bess was born. She and the husband are coming along (not to the conference itself ) too so we might be doing a bit of sight seeing while we are there.

The title of my paper is: ‘ Aiding the interpretation of ancient documents’ (its on the Thursday at 11am if anyone is there and interested) and its all about decisions/interpretations in Humanities, how we remember our interpretation (or get a computer program to do it) and how we can store these interpretations/decisions and retrieve them when we need them again. It is a round-up of my PhD research in Ancient History at University of Oxford (also part of the now concluded eSAD project).

The stick-(wo)man (I clearly can’t draw and I don’t care) is a documentary scholar but could just as easily be an archaeologist asking: ‘why did I think this context was a part of house A last week when it is so clearly a part of house B today?’. My research took place in the field of Ancient History so is aimed at documentary scholars mainly. However, the conclusions draw in a much wider audience from all over Humanities as decisions in Humanities are usually interpretation-based and:

Subjective
Have very little supported material
Are near impossible to quantify
Are difficult to map

If you would like to know more – let me know! Now I better get back to actually making the presentation.

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Conservation of Archaeological Metal Assemblage

By Emily Noel-Paton on June 29, 2012 in Conservation, DayOfArch2012, Finds

I am an objects conservator at AOC Archaeology group, a commercial archaeology company based in Loanhead, Midlothian, Scotland. There are only two of us in the department so we are kept very busy and are involved in all sorts of projects with every day being completely different. We conserve and stabilise all the finds that our archaeologists in the field excavate. Often we are the first non-archaeologists to deal with freshly excavated materials and we are constantly ensuring that the materials gain their archaeological potential.

At the moment I am conserving a large number of finds from two sites excavated by our London office. The purpose of the conservation is to stabilise the finds for the long-term archive as well as possibly reveal new details on the surface of the objects, helping the specialists identify and describe the finds. The finds are all metal – iron, lead and copper alloy with a large number of Roman coins and many coffin nails.

All the artefacts were covered in thick layers of soil and corrosion obscuring the surfaces and masking any detail. Following x-raying of the finds, I cleaned the iron artefacts using an air abrasive machine and the copper alloy items using mechanical methods (scalpel, bamboo skewer) carefully under a binocular microscope.

Me cleaning a copper alloy spoon under the microscope

Roman coin after conservation

This morning I have been finishing the last few objects and taking after treatment photographs. This afternoon I will be documenting the treatment of each object. As the objects were excavated in London we have to follow a specific documentation procedure set by the Museum of London. Each object has a A5 proforma card with specific information about the find, its condition and how it was treated.

While I have been working in the lab Alan Braby a freelance illustrator has come in to do a recorded drawing of one of the amazing Roman altars that we have been conserving recently. If you would like to find out more we set up a blog about the conservation work we have done on these two Roman altars excavated at Lewisvale Park. Here is the link: http://www.aocarchaeology.com/lewisvale-roman-altars/

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The end of a season: Teleac, Romania

By nicolet on August 7, 2011 in Day of Archaeology, DayofArch2011

An overview of the trench earlier in the season, when the weather was better!

The end of any excavation is usually an experience outside the normal routine of the dig; this seems to be especially the case in academic excavations, where many of the participants may have left prior to the final day due to other commitments. This was at least the case this year at the site of Teleac; a late Bronze Age hillfort in the Transylvanian region of Romania, run by the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin (DAI). I was taking part in the field school as a PhD student of the Forging Identities project.

Putting the magnetometer together to carry it up to site

On the last day on site we were down to a rather small team, which meant that I was the only student to go up to site, whilst the others stayed at base camp to finish tasks there, such as packing up the artefacts. I got a lift to site with the Bulgarian geomagnetics team; these guys were surveying the site with equipment that can detect differences in the magnetic field of the ground, which means that archaeological features such as ditches can be seen through their difference to the surrounding undisturbed soil. Since we arrived a little later than usual, we had missed the tractor which usually pulled all the equipment up to site; therefore we had to carry everything up the steep hill where the site is located by ourselves. This was facilitated by carrying the magnetometer without its case.

Drawing a section in the rain – hence the use of the beach umbrella to keep the paper dry!

Once I finally made it up the hill along the slippery, muddy track to the site, it had started raining pretty heavily. It was then my job to draw the section of a sondage; this means drawing the vertical face of the small but fairly deep trench we had dug in a corner of the overall excavation area, whose purpose had been to find out how deep the cultural deposits of the site went before reaching the natural, undisturbed soil of the hill below.

Back-filling in action

Once I had completed my drawings, I helped the local workmen (high school students earning a bit of holiday money by helping out on site) with back-filling the excavation area. This means putting back all the soil we removed over the course of the fieldwork, so that the site is protected until used again, and no animals or people can get hurt falling into the deeper parts of the trench.

Almost back at the modern village of Teleac

Thanks to the rain, it was no longer possible for the tractor to safely make it back up the hill to collect us and the equipment, so we had a long, muddy walk back down the hill again, taking great care not to slip or fall.

Back at the home base, various final tasks were being completed in between power cuts caused by the thunderstorm…

Pottery reconstruction in progress; these ceramics were found this year at the site

Artefacts and equipment packed up for transportation

Taking samples for metallurgical analysis, to investigate the composition of the bronze

Shooting the final artefact photos

Trying to interpret the geomagnetic survey results, and pondering the future of research at the site

After at last managing to find enough time between power outages to shower, it was finally time to pack my own things and have a last farewell drink with what was left of the team. The end of another good season, and for me – time to think about my journey to the next one!

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Archaeometallurgy in the university – a PhD student’s day

By ruthft on July 30, 2011 in DayofArch2011, Finds, Roman, Romano-British, Science

Introduction

My name is Ruth Fillery-Travis, and I am an archaeometallurgist. That is, I use scientific analytical techniques to examine metal objects and the evidence of their production. I’m in a sub-discipline of a sub-discipline, as archaeometallurgy is a part of archaeometry/archaeological science, which is often considered a sub-discipline of archaeology. Luckily enough all the sub-sub-sub stops there, because I’m in the UK – if I were in the US archaeology itself might be considered a sub discipline of anthropology!

It might seem strange to be in such a niche subject area, but it fits my interests perfectly – I wanted to be a physicist right until I started studying it at university! After that I switched to Classical Archaeology, which had zero science and a lot of critical analysis of art, architecture and archaeological objects. Archaeometallurgy allows me to combine those two areas – I get to look at sometimes quite stunningly beautiful classical objects and not just analyse their physical appearance but use scientific techniques to analyse what they were made of and how they were made – like the snake ring adjacent.

Snake head of gold Roman finger ring

I’m currently reading for a PhD at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. I started in 2009 – before that I worked in local council archaeology as a records assistant on the ‘Sites and Monuments’ or (in more modern terms) ‘Heritage Environment Records’ of Norfolk and then Greater London. Nothing to do with archaeometallurgy – but then that’s a common problem with studying archaeology. If you can get a job in the discipline at all – which is tough – then it often isn’t in the area you originally trained in. But the advantage of that is that you can gain some fantastic experience – certainly my time working on the Greater London records was fascinating.

Between those jobs Continue Reading →

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It’s Friday… Friday… Which Seat Can I take?

By Stu Eve on July 29, 2011 in Augmented Reality, Commercial Archaeology, Day of Archaeology, DayofArch2011, Digital Archaeology, Education

As dear Rebecca Black so eloquently said (covering Dylan of course) – it’s Friday, which seat can I take?

I have two archaeological hats to wear, I am a Partner in L – P : Archaeology and I am also undertaking a PhD at UCL.

It is an amazing position to be in and the straddling of the academic and commercial world really makes my archaeological life interesting and the constant crossover gives some pretty cool insights into how things work together. That and my five-week old kid means I am pretty busy most of the time!

Today I am sitting in both seats. This morning I have been working on the PhD, I am looking at using Augmented Reality (AR) to aid in Phenomenological Investigation of Landscapes. What that means in the real world is that I get to play with iPads and gaming-engines, making archaeological information appear in the landscape. AR is slowly becoming a widely-used technique (especially in the advertising world) and indeed many archaeologists are getting in on the act. The Museum of London has just released StreetMuseum Londinium which allows users to wander around the streets of London with their smart-phone, ‘seeing’ where various artefacts, etc. have been discovered. Today I have been attempting to move some of my AR work over to a new SDK released for iOS by Qualcomm to aid in marker-based AR. Ideally later today or at the weekend I will take the iPad out into the landscape (the local park with my boy in his buggy) and actually make some stuff appear outside – instead of having to sit at the computer futzing around. Before I do that though, I have to get my head around quaternion mathematics, accelerometers and gyroscopes, then meshing this all with GPS and vision-based analysis. It’s pretty fun in a sick masochistic kind of way, but it does seem quite far from archaeology at the moment!

This afternoon I will have to move seats and put on my L – P : Hat. It is the end of the month and therefore its time to take a good look at the finances for the past month and what contracts we currently have on, etc. As L – P is owned and run by the partners themselves, it means that we all have to do a bit of everything – this is a great way of working and means we can really turn our hand to anything. Although we are spread over 4 offices in the UK, we are all great friends and working with everyone here is an absolute pleasure. It is great fun working with such amazing people in a very dynamic sector and doing work to a highly academic standard in a commercial framework. I mean doing archaeology, constantly learning new things, working with mates AND getting paid for it – not a bad Day!

However, times have been a bit rocky recently for commercial archaeology, and although it seems as if UK PLC. is pulling itself slowly out of the recession, new planning laws are being drawn up that may or may not make it better for archaeologists. There are constant stories of planning departments closing, units going bust and people out of work. We are all really at a turning point at the moment in commercial archaeology and so this afternoon I will also be taking the time to look over the new proposed National Planning Framework and seeing how this is going to affect the sector. I urge everyone else to do the same, the Government is asking for consultation responses, so please do take a look and contact the IfA and let them know what you think about the document and how we can change it to make it better for the needs of the sector.

Right back to my seat… front or back?

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Archaeology Conservation at HCC Museums Service

By Claire Woodhead on July 29, 2011 in Day of Archaeology, DayofArch2011, Finds, Museum Archaeology, Science

We are lucky at Hampshire Arts and Museums Service to have a group of trained and professionally accredited conservators, looking after our collections in store and in our museums across Hampshire. We are spread over the different disciplines – my responsibility is mainly archaeology. Although I initially trained as a historic objects conservator at the University of Lincoln, I have a background in amateur archaeology which was what spurred me to go into conservation. I wanted to know what happened to the objects once they left the site! My working days are varied, and can include bench conservation work, stores work (repackaging etc.), environmental monitoring, mount making, outreach, training and exhibitions work. Some of that will be happening during the course of today!

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A Day in the Life of… a PhD Student!

By Rachael on July 29, 2011 in DayofArch2011, Iron Age, Prehistory, Romano-British

Hi folks!

There are all kinds of contributors to the day of arch and I feel extremely proud to be one of them. This is just an introduction to me and setting the scene for what I will actually be doing tomorrow. My name is Rachael Reader and I am currently writing up my PhD thesis, hopefully handing in within the next three months. My interest in archaeology began when I was eight (no, really!) when I was introduced to Time Team. It seems a little cliched, but it is the God honest truth! My parents were more than happy to fuel my interest and let me dig up the back garden of my house in a little town, just outside of Barnsley (my best find to date is a 1980s ten pence piece…). My parents found out where digs were happening and took me along to them, including one in York where I learnt the real truth about archaeology. I had an illuminating conversation with someone working in the museum gardens who told me that archaeology was poorly paid, nothing like Time Team and definitely nothing like Indiana Jones (which meant little to me as even to this day, as I have still not seen the films!). I asked the archaeologist why they still did it and they replied simply “because I love it”. The enthusiasm he had, even when describing the negatives, sealed it for me and off I went to university to pursue my career. I studied Ancient History and Archaeology at Birmingham University before doing my Masters at Cardiff, where I developed my current research interests in the later prehistoric period and particularly, the landscape approach to archaeology.

Whilst writing my Masters thesis I was pondering over what to do next. I had spent several weeks here and there, excavating with the University but also community digs, including SHARP at Sedgeford in Norfolk. I loved digging but had yet to know how commercial archaeology worked, so I began putting my CV together and waiting for jobs to come up at units. However my supervisor directed me to an advert for a PhD position, at Bradford University and it involved two of my favourite things: Iron Age stuff and landscape! I could not resist and I eagerly put together my application, was offered an interview and ultimately the position, which I was thrilled to accept. I began my current position in October 2008 and I feel a little sad that I am beginning to wind down and *gulp* hand in.

Continue Reading →

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