The final digital humanist type included in our model is the domain knowledge specialist. Superficially, DHer 5 appears to be the same as the traditional humanities scholar. They have acquired a high level of knowledge about a specific category of humanities content through the standard (graduate and postgraduate) academic channels. However, what marks them out as special is their ability to work within the interdisciplinary teams of larger DH projects. They will, therefore, thrive in a collaborative environment, enjoying
the opportunities that come with working with designers, computer programmers, policy makers, legal experts and other domain knowledge specialists. While they themselves are not required to be skilled in the use of digital tools and methods, they will nonetheless be able to communicate with those team members who do have these skills. This distinction follows Rieder and Röhle’s (2012 p. 77) argument that not all digital humanists need to be able to write code but they should all at least be able to make some sense of it and to engage in dialogue around it.
Digital archaeology and Archaeological Information Systems
While techniques favoured and developed within DH are also being applied in archaeological contexts, it would be inaccurate to say that the history of the use of computational methods by archaeologists is subsumed into the history of DH. While both now share much common ground in terms of the personnel involved, the technical strategies followed and in the theoretical structures that underpin these approaches, their histories have developed along separate paths and are in fact quite distinct, as we will now attempt to elucidate.
The history of digital archaeology10 begins in the late 1960s when archaeologists first started to use computers as datastores and as mechanisms for conducting statistical analyses that were up until that point impossible to achieve using human computation alone (Eiteljorg 2004). These early experiments were rare for their time and would no doubt have been viewed with suspicion and their motivations and logic questioned by the peers of those conducting them. Despite the vast costs and the great tedium involved (Daly & Evans 2006 p. 6), interesting results did start to appear, most notably in the statistical work of archaeologists such as Deetz (1977) and Longacre (1970). It was also during the 1970s that the first conferences on the subject of digital archaeology were held (Eiteljorg 2004 p. 22). The inaugural Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods
10 The use of computational methodologies within archaeology has not only been referred to as
‘digital archaeology’. ‘Computational archaeology’, ‘archaeological informatics’,
‘archaeoinformatics’ and latterly ‘cyber-archaeology’ (Zubrow 2010) are terms that have been used extensively within the community and continue to be used to describe this general category of practice. A Google search for ‘digital archaeology’ shows that it is also used to define the activity of investigating and preserving the early digital record of the World Wide Web (Boulton 2014). And so, while I am fully aware that there are epistemological implications in using each of these terms in the context of archaeological research, we will set these matters aside for now and for the sake of simplicity, use ‘digital archaeology’ to refer to all digital practices conducted by archaeologists, computer scientists or any other category of researcher as they apply to matters of archaeological relevance.
in Archaeology gathering took place in the University of Birmingham, England in 1973. CAA would go on to perform a unique function for the field from that point on. However, despite these advances, it would take a number of years and, specifically, a number of key technological developments before the use of computer technology became truly democratised within archaeology. The most significant of these technological catalysts was the move away from mainframe computing towards the personal computer, which started during the late 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s (Berndt & Rappaport 2001 p. 268). The PC was cheaper11 and more portable, and Zubrow characterises the impact of this technological shift on the social reality of digital archaeology as being an increase in the ‘“individualism” in machines’ (Zubrow 2006 p. 16).
Since that change, interest in using digital archaeological techniques has grown from strength to strength. In retrospect, it is possible to categorise these types of project into five basic groups: recording and representation of archaeological information, statistical analysis, data modelling, virtual reality and mixed reality applications, and finally, digital dissemination (Daly & Evans 2006 p. 5). Digital archaeology is now also fully integrated into the didactic fibre of the field. While certain ‘hubs’ of digital archaeology exist (for example, at the University of Southampton in the UK and at Stanford University in the US), most, if not all, archaeology departments now run modules, which address aspects of digital practice. Consequently, these methods have become ubiquitous elements of field and lab archaeology. For instance, one of the absolute prerequisites of any archaeological field project is the inclusion of a Geographical Information Systems specialist in its team, and we see the development of an analogous canon of digital skills (3D modelling, digital photograph editing and so on) being introduced into post- excavation practice as well. Whether considered within its commercial or research guises, the application of digital techniques within archaeology has reached the point of normalisation.
11 The price of the earliest personal computer models dwarfs its present day equivalent. If we
compare two like-for-like desktop personal computer models, with the first being purchased in 1983 and the second in 1999, the former is 384 times more expensive in real terms than the latter (Berndt & Rappaport 2001 p. 271).
Archaeological Information Systems12 represent one combination of digital activity and artefact, which is firmly associated with the rise of digital archaeology, and they are also the primary focus of this thesis. Usually defined within the context of digital recording practice, the Archaeological Information System’s role has become broader as its supporting technologies have evolved and the imaginations of its creators have expanded to exploit these new technological possibilities. Having said that, the primary task of the Archaeological Information System has remained to organise and store the empirical observations made by archaeologists during excavation and post-excavation and the interpretations that are ultimately derived from these data. Of course, this does not mean to say that an Archaeological Information System must be delivered as a digital solution. In fact, we will show in this thesis that it is far more common for archaeological projects to use paper-based Archaeological Information Systems, at least at the beginning of their life. Regardless of its medial form, so fundamental is the Archaeological Information System to the workings of an archaeological project that to imagine one without the other is perhaps impossible.
The first digital Archaeological Information Systems were created in the 1970s, as primitive (from today’s standards) database applications. These were originally designed to run on mainframe computers but as we have seen it was soon necessary to port their functionality over for use on the more flexible architecture of the personal computer (Eiteljorg 2004). While the technology of the Archaeological Information System is clearly of importance in the context of the services that it can deliver, it is just as important to consider the Archaeological Information System from a more holistic perspective. The way that archaeological information is digitally formalised is governed by the laws and practices of a branch of information science known as Knowledge Representation (Sowa 1999), and while KR is often presented from a narrowly functionalist point of view, this thesis bucks the trend by addressing its wider causes and effects. As such, Chapters 3 and 7 present the KR decision-making process in respect to its associated ontological, epistemological and sociological contexts.
12 Alternatives to the ‘Archaeological Information System’ term occasionally appear but this
would seem to be caused more by a lack of awareness by the authors about the existing scholarship on the subject than by any significant change of sense intended. As such, I have chosen to follow the example set by Carver (2005) and others (Joseph et al. 2004) and to exclusively use Archaeological Information System for the remainder of this thesis.
One aspect of the Archaeological Information System, which invites as much functionalist debate as it does questions of a more theoretical nature, is data standardisation and this is a topic that will play a substantial role in the narrative of this thesis. Archaeological Information System standardisation defines the principle that the degree to which an individual project can decide how its data is structured is limited by external dictates. So, for instance, imagine that an archaeological project wishes to define a particular category of information that will record stratigraphic information for their project. If the project chooses (or is compelled) to adhere strictly to an external Archaeological Information System standard, then the form of this stratigraphic record will be decided not by the project’s members but by some external body. Advocates of the standard would argue that this system allows for researchers to consider the contents of more than one archaeological project at a time. This increases its value at a pragmatic level but critics would contend that the functional gains are offset and overshadowed by the loss of individual project freedom, which has implications for the project’s epistemology. The arguments are more nuanced in reality than this and most Archaeological Information Systems will impose some level of standardisation of practice onto its community of users. The debate centres on the degree of adherence and it is a matter that will structure the form of many of the arguments developed in the coming chapters.
As was mentioned at the beginning of this section, digital archaeology and DH have yet to develop the close working relationship that would reflect the theoretical and practical commonalities that link the two fields (Watrall 2012). There are a number of possible reasons why such a developmental distinction might have come to pass. It is possible, for instance, that there is a sense within the two communities that they are both competing for the same limited funding and other intuitional resources. It also might be the case that DH’s historical focus on mainly textual content is at odds with archaeology’s interest in a much broader range of material culture (Dunn 2011 p. 95). I would also argue that the large-scale trans-disciplinary team model that has become popular in DH is not yet the norm (and it may never become the norm) in digital archaeological circles. And yet despite these differences, in the light of Terras’s call for a DH that espouses a ‘Big Tent’ model of inclusivity, it is not hard to conclude that both communities are currently missing an opportunity when it comes to learning from the experiences of the other. DH and digital archaeology have much to gain from the establishment of a more
collaborative working relationship. Personally speaking, I identify as a digital humanist but at the same time, this statement should not neutralise the fact that I also work within the archaeological community as an excavator, researcher and consumer of materials derived from archaeological practice. And in the same measure, it should not, and I would hope does not, preclude my involvement in the activities and debates of the DH community.
Archaeological data conceptualisation and data terminology
A key topic that needs to be addressed before going any further is the subject of archaeological data conceptualisation and how we use language to define the concepts and relationships that constitute archaeological knowledge. After all, this is a thesis that is essentially concerned with the flow of data through the epistemological channels of the archaeological discipline, and so the question of ‘what is archaeological data?’ must be addressed. My own position is that there can be no one universal answer to this question; how you come to conceptualise archaeological data and all of the metaphysical structures and more tangible outputs that grow out of that understanding are dependent on your own particular world view, which is a product of your nature, your culture and your experience of other natures and other cultures. In that light, it is important that I, as the author of this work, now set out my stall and define exactly what it is that I mean by the term, archaeological data.
The philosophy of archaeology has for the last number of decades been typically (and problematically) divided into two camps: processualism and post-processualism. We will present a more nuanced history of this dynamic in Chapter 7 but for now we can say that the first largely equates to the mores of positivism and the latter to those of post- modernism. Positivism essentially posits that truth is obtainable and the various factions of post-modernism agree that it is not. For the archaeological processualist, this implies that the past is accessible through the medium of the material remains of past agency. For example, were a processualist archaeologist to uncover a fine bone comb during the excavation of a Viking settlement, this discovery could be used to open up a portal into a series of discreet past realities surrounding the biography of the comb. A post- processualist would be much more circumspect in terms of what they felt they could say about the people and societies who had once interacted with the artefact. They would be constantly aware that whatever theory was induced from the comb data was bound to say more about themselves and their own societies than that of any other.
Clearly, this divergence of views imposes two very different understandings onto the nature and value of data within archaeology. For the processualist, data can be trusted and used confidently as a source material upon which theories can be constructed. For the post-processualist, data is to be treated with caution, perhaps even mistrust. These views become even more entrenched when we introduce digital data into the equation. Processualists will see digital data as being reflective of the physical data, which in turn is reflective of past agency, as we have just seen. For the post-processualist, however, digital data introduces a new level of obfuscation, which serves to further distance the archaeologist from the past and, if anything, it re-enforces the subjectivity of the archaeological act.
How might the physical object sit within these two very different data models? Archaeology has traditionally been defined by the value that it places in the study of the object in its physical sense (Knappett 2014 p. 4701). It was long considered distinct from history because the latter focussed its attentions solely on the textual source, while archaeology was drawn to the study of the material record (Alberione dos Reis 2006). While this distinction is no longer considered as helpful as it once was (Bevir 2000; Isayev 2006), the gravitation of the archaeologist towards the idea of the object cannot be ignored and indeed it needs to be taken into account when we consider the world of digital knowledge. Throughout the coming chapters there will be mention made of digital entities, which would appear to have much in common with the archaeologist’s understanding of the physical object (Morgan 2012 p. 21). How then do these two concepts – the physical and the digital object – relate? Is the latter and more recent of these ideas built upon the other and, therefore, has the long tradition of thought that has surrounded the physical object come to influence our understanding of the latter?
My own opinion is that the answer to both of these questions is a resounding yes. I think that this understanding has come about in a natural, unnoticed and all-pervasive manner that is the hallmark of most human enterprise, which happens through a process of evolution and not revolution. I naturally think of a digital representation of a dagger that has been excavated from a site as being analogous to the physical object of that dagger. I
imagine13 it as being related to other digital objects – such as the digital representation of its place of discovery, the date of this event and the archaeologist who performed the discovery act – but I also see the object as having characteristics (or metadata) – digital representations of its width, height, weight, colour, et cetera – that are enclosed within the confines of the dagger’s digital object. These are perhaps what one might term ‘natural’14 views of the digital dagger object but while I hold these views I am also capable of appreciating that there are many alternative ways to conceptualise a digital object. For example, I also know that the digital dagger exists as a series of electrical charges stored on an integrated circuit within a computer’s memory. When viewed from this perspective, the idea that the digital record of the dagger’s characteristics are in some sense separated from the digital record representing the archaeological site, the date digital object or the archaeologist digital object no longer holds up to scrutiny.
Our understanding of digital archaeological data and the digital archaeological object is very much related to terminology. We all use words such as data, information, fact, truth, knowledge and interpretation frequently in our daily lives and in our academic discourses but it is not always clear how one term relates to the next and what, if any, the significance of choosing to use one over another has. As such, it is worth outlining what I understand by these data-knowledge terms (as I will refer to the group as a whole) and this should help in the reading of the coming chapters.15
To begin, we must first consider the term ‘data’ itself. Kitchin tells us that data derives from the Latin verb ‘dare’, which means to give (Kitchin 2014 p. 2). As such, this implies that data involves the movement or communication of some thing from a source to a destination. Depending on the context, these sources and destinations will be different but one of the most common uses of data is in the context of the observation of phenomena. In this light, data can be understood as phenomena that are in some way captured or frozen in time and space. As we have seen, if you are a post-processualist, the model of data as a reproduction of a source phenomenon no longer stands up to
13 ‘Imagine’ is an important term here. The need to create visual images of digital objects in order
to consider them is strong and yet it is a framework that the subject is rarely conscious of.
14 Compare this to Shanks’s (1997) definition of the term ‘naturalism’ as it is used within the field
of archaeological photography.
15 The intention of adopting this personalised approach is not to present these definitions as