Archaeolog: a collaborative archaeology blog
Michael Shanks is a well known archaeologist who specialises in theoretical approaches within archaeology. He is one of the growing number of archaeologists who really ‘get it’ when it comes to social media and the internet. Through his blog and various experiments he has grasped the concepts of participatory media by the horns and seen the possibilities and realities that communicative technologies can provide. If you’re reading this because you like archaeology, or you are interested in ‘Web 2.0′, I’d recommend a visit to his site.
To get to the point of this post, Michael and others have established Archaeolog:
Archaeolog is a collective weblog dealing in all things archaeological. It is open to the wider archaeological community and cognate fields from academics to field practitioners, from professors to students. We are inclusive and have no agenda other than to foster debate. We are community driven and we wish to provide a place for archaeology at large to be visible to the widest possible audience.
It’s great to see something like this. I’ve been promoting the use of blogs and social networking within archaeology for a few years now, and to be honest I’ve been a bit blind as to what has been happening in the USA. Expect a few more posts as I delve into some of the experiements in the wonderfully named “collaboratory” at Stanford University.
Archaeolog is committed to accelerating the debate. With the ability to comment it facilitates immediate feedback and discussion from a broad range of inquirers interested in exploring the archaeological sensibility at large.
And long may the debate continue, and may many be involved…
heather714 2:37 pm on 30 July, 2006 Permalink
This is the first collaborative archaeology project I’ve ever heard of. Sounds like a great web 2.0 application that has a lot of potential. …
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Kate 12:38 pm on 4 August, 2006 Permalink
Hi,
I have been searching Technorati’s pages for blogs interested in archaeology and found yours. It is excellent. I have been blogging about my historical and archaeological interests for a few months now and I have found it difficult to meet up with like-minded people. So I have added yours to my favourites today. I love history and my aim is to bring history to people who never really think about it. My blog is a large part of this effort. I am also writing historical novels, not published yet, but maybe one day. I am glad to see that there are other historians/archaeologists out there who realise the enormous potential of the internet and web to promote history and archaeology,
Kate.
http://journals.aol.co.uk/bobandkate/AnAnalysisofLife/
Henrik 7:15 pm on 23 September, 2006 Permalink
Well I have read the entries on archaeolog for the past month or so.
It might be, that Shanks has “grasped the concepts of participatory media by the horns and seen the possibilities and realities that communicative technologies can provide”, but I’m really not impressed with the blog. When you comment on the blog it takes several days for the comment to appear on the post and the author doesn’t always respond – although I have also witnessed some quite active participation from the ‘collaborators’. There are some nice posts, but the part about fostering a debate… well, it seems to be going at a rather slow pace.