Tag Archive for 'archaeology'

Wessex Archaeology adopts Creative Commons license for photos

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 24 May, 2007 in Creative Commons, Heritage and Archaeology. 1 Comment

[Disclaimer: I work for Wessex Archaeology]
Wessex Archaeology have just announced that they will be using a Creative Commons license for the 600+ photos that they have on Flickr and in their gallery.

Let’s hope that other heritage organisations follow suit. The “All Rights Reserved” copyright model is very restrictive when you study and record the past, and want to share some of that work with others to aid and encourage further learning.

By adopting the Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0″ license, they are actively saying to people “we want you to use our photos”. Which for a heritage organisation, is fairly novel!

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New look Oxford Archaeology website

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 25 August, 2006 in Web Technology and Archaeology. 5 Comments

Oxford Archaeology's new look websiteOxford Archaeology have recently given their website a complete facelift. In a bold move, visitors to their ‘old’ domain name www.oxfordarch.co.uk are redirected to http://www.thehumanjourney.net/ where the front page contains none of the usual blurb about the company, just a menu and a large showcase image, currently a “Study for the female heidelbergensis face based on the Broken Hill skull”. It’s a compelling and powerful image.

They have moved much of their content over to a Joomla CMS, and employ some other open source projects such as Gallery. We are promised much more innovation as part of their “Open Archaeology” programme.
Continue reading ‘New look Oxford Archaeology website’

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Portable Antiquities Scheme Blog

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 11 August, 2006 in Web Technology, Blogging and Archaeology. 1 Comment

Today, I’ve just discovered that the Portable Antiquities Scheme, a voluntary scheme to record archaeological objects found by members of the public in England and Wales, have a blog and a whole slew of RSS feeds.

The PAS blog covers pretty much everything done by the Scheme, from technical notes about the website the the information contained withing the PAS database, to spotlighting particular finds of note. It’s an interesting read for techies and non-techies alike.

At the time of writing, the latest post covers the scheme’s usage of open source software. It’s nice to read something like this from a fellow heritage professional:

It should be recognised that IE sucks by now.

Yes!

I’m reading the post as I write this, I confess, and it’s just mentioned me as a “guru”. Well I never! Moreimportantly, it’s mentioned that the PAS will be implementing geotagging later in the summer, which is heartening, as I’ve been very keen to see this applied to in a heritage context. Well done, guys!

Link: Portable Antiquities Scheme blog

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Archaeolog: a collaborative archaeology blog

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 30 July, 2006 in Heritage, Blogging and Archaeology. 3 Comments

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…

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Google Sketchup: Free 3D modelling tool

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 9 May, 2006 in Software, 3D and Archaeology. 1 Comment

I’ve been using Sketchup for a while now (demo version), initially seeing it at the MacExpo in London last year. It’s a brilliant tool, taking (in my opinion) a whole new approach to 3D modelling. It couldn’t be easier to use.

Sketchup introduced a tool to export models straight into Google Earth, and the rest is history. The company was bought by Google, who now offer a free version of the software, which is limited in what you can import or export. You will still need the ‘pro’ version if you want to use the software in conjuntion with (i.e. exporting to) CAD or 3D visualisation software.

Archaeologists - it’s very easy indeed to import an AutoCAD DWG into Sketchup (or aerial photos, DEMs or a combination), and have fun trying out different interpretations. You can then export them to Google Earth.

It’s a lot of fun, and dare I say it, rather useful.

Get more info at the Google Sketchup website.

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Megalithic Portal

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 4 April, 2006 in Archaeology. 1 Comment

The Megalithic Portal have recently received their 20 millionth page impression since their launch in 2001. Well done guys!

If you’ve never visited the Megalithic Portal, it’s a website dedicated to standing stones, stone circles, all things megalithic, and interesting prehistoric (archaeological) discoveries. It’s a community-based website, with forums, picture gallery and a news system, which anyone can contribute to if you sign up to become a member.

There’s also an interactive map, so you can find out if there’s anything of interest locally. Their coverage isn’t just limited to the UK - although it does have a British and Irish focus, the whole world is covered.

If you’re a “megawrack” or just have a passing interest in prehistoric sites, you owe it to yourself to pay them a visit!

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“I’ve always wanted to meet an archaeologist”

Published by
Tom Goskar
at 12 March, 2006 in Ramblings, Computing and Archaeology. 2 Comments

When people ask what I do, and I reply “I’m an archaeologist”, the reaction is generally one of surprise and interest, and occasionally one of disbelief. I’m not wearing a hat. There are no boulders chasing after me. And I don’t have leather patches on my jacket. OK, so I’ve got long hair, but we’ll ignore that for now (trust me, there are a lot of stereotypical remarks about an archaeologist’s appearance).

At last year’s Mac Expo in London, I was wearing a name badge which contained the name of my employers (hint: it contains the word “Archaeology”), giving the game away about what I do for a living.

A man came up to me whilst I was browsing a stand, and he asked if he could shake my hand. In apprehensive disbelief, I shook his hand. I think my reaction was simple: “Err, of course. Why?”, whilst looking rather puzzled. He replied that he’s watched archaeology on TV and read books about it for years, and always wanted to meet a real archaeologist. We chatted for a bit, and he was doubly amazed that I was an archaeologist who specialised in compter applications. The concept that archaeologists gathered an awful lot of data just hadn’t occurred, and that we might need computers to quantify, query and interpret, and disseminate that information.

Archaeology is pointless if we don’t publish what we find.

I encountered a lot of people at the Expo who asked me about my profession, and all of them were amazed that archaeology uses a lot of modern technology to help us in just about every stage of our work. The same reactions were found at the PodcastconUK conference in September 2005.

A recent discussion with friends about the awareness of technology use in archaeology reminded me of my meetings at Mac Expo and PodcastconUK, so I thought I’d list some of the things we do in the world of archaeological computing. These are basic introductions, a paragraph or two long, as each topic could be a book in its own right.

Continue reading ‘“I’ve always wanted to meet an archaeologist”’

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