IOSA.it Open Archaeology

As many readers will know, since 2008 we’ve been working to enable archaeologists and their colleagues with a chance to do professional surveying on free operating systems. What sounded like a silly idea is now reality in the Total Open Station project.

Total stations do a nice job, but that’s you do something more when you’re interested in what’s beneath the soil rather than on top of it. Enter geophysics, with another load of costly hardware tools that are locked in proprietary combinations of software and drivers.

In case you’re using GNU/Linux or another free operating system, you might find quite difficult to interact with your geophysical device, without any dedicated software. As you might expect, you’re not the first to encounter this problem (you’re never going to be the first) and someone else already started working on a solution.

Tractatus Post Quem (tpq) by John Donovan is a

collection of tools useful to the archaeological geophysicist and surveyor, focussing on the conversion of data from proprietary formats, georeferencing them, and tagging with metadata.

A bit later than I should, here’s the call for participation for the 15th Vienna Conference about Cultural Heritage and New Technologies. IOSA went in 2006 and then 2008, it is always a very pleasant conference. Unfortunately we won’t be able to go this year.

Urban Archaeology is a relatively new sub-discipline within the archaeological sciences. Why has it been such a late developer? How do its scientific results amplify and influence our knowledge and thinking on the development of our towns and cities? How has the discipline developed in the last decades and what reasons were there for coining the specific term “Urban Archaeology”? How exactly do we define it? Is it archaeology of or archaeology in towns?

Since the 19th century, the study of archaeobotanical remains has been very important for combining “strict” archaeological knowledge with environmental data. Pollen data enable assessing the introduction of certain domesticated species of plants, or the presence of other species that grow typically where humans dwell. Not all pollen data come from archaeological fieldwork, but the relationship among the two sets is strong enough to take an interested look at pollen data worldwide, their availability and most importantly their openness, for which we follow the Open Knowledge Definition.

The starting point for finding pollen data is the NOAA website.

The Global Pollen Database hosted by the NOAA is a good starting point, but apparently its coverage is quite limited outside the US.

Very interesting unconference:

Have you a cool new way to give Humanities researchers access to digital resources? Here is a chance to show the Digital Humanities community what you can do.

There will be a Developer’s Challenge as a part of the DH2010/THATCamp London this year. It will be an opportunity for you, as a developer of software in the Digital Humanities, to show off your ideas for new ways that digital humanities data can be exploited. The focus will be on a prototype application that breaks down barriers between humanities scholars and digital materials in new ways.

We are encouraging a few Humanities data providers to provide materials that you can exploit. A list of available datasets will be made available on the THATCamp London website in early June. Information on how to access the datasets will eventually be made available on this page also.

The winners will receive a piece of hardware that we think you might like. Also, of course, you will receive the glory of recognition from others in the Digital Humanities. The winning team and software will also be announced within the broader JISC developer community.

How you can take part in the Challenge
You will need to register as a participant for the Developer Challenge. Please email and to register your intention to participate in the Challenge; if you are not already registered on the THATCamp London site, please also include a brief biography, and a description of the area you would like to work on.

I just wonder: do they know that we archaeologists are much more likely to be around digging during summer ? I will, for example.

Apart from that, I do appreciate a lot the focus on data. It's no coincidence that the King's Centre for Computing in Humanities has been producing two of the very few datasets about antiquity that are available under an open license.

We're unfortunately getting used to this kind of announcements about cuts for research and education bodies. Let's not get used to culture as a minor, unessential ingredient of our society.

Anche quest'anno la cultura dovrà pagare le mancate riforme strutturali del paese.
La SAIA è tra gli enti, istituti e fondazioni che non riceveranno più finanziamenti dallo Stato, decretando così la morte della ricerca archeologica italiana in Grecia, che dura da più di 100 anni, e la fine della più importante scuola di formazione archeologi italiani.

Da oltre un secolo, dapprima come spedizione scientifica di singoli studiosi, poi come Missione stabile ed, infine, nella qualità di Sede ateniese per ricerche e scavi archeologici in Grecia e nelle aree di civiltà ellenica e per la formazione e la specializzazione di giovani studiosi, la Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene è il punto di riferimento di tutti gli archeologi e gli storici dell'antichità che dalle Università, dal CNR o dalle Soprintendenze svolgono attività di ricerca in Grecia.

Nata per favorire l'alta formazione dei funzionari delle Soprintendenze archeologiche italiane (ruolo che ha svolto in passato in modo egregio e che continuerà a svolgere in futuro) e come centro di coordinamento delle Missioni italiane in Grecia (e per un certo tempo anche in Oriente) la Scuola ha costituito sin dall'inizio la sintesi tra due funzioni basilari: formazione e ricerca, ospitando anche laureati in architettura che si occupano di restauro, conservazione e studio dei monumenti.

If you can, please sign the petition to save the Italian Archaeological School at Athens.

We have finally managed to put online the video footage of the seminar "Diritti d'autore e banche dati per i Beni Culturali" that we had last year in Genoa on 7 May 2009, organized by grupporicerche.
You can read a brief report and watch videos at this URL: http://www.iosa.it/diritti/ - video files are in the open and free OGG Theora format, and hosted at the Internet Archive. It's all in Italian, we haven't managed to create subtitles yet. If you need help, don't hesitate to ask.
We really hope that this material will be useful to anyone trying to push for open archaeology. More meetings like this one will certainly help clarifying the main issues in the field of copyright assignment and dissemination of archaeological data under free licenses.

ArcheoFOSS 2010, the 5th Italian workshop on “Free software, open source e open format nei processi di ricerca archeologica” took place in Foggia, 6 and May. First of all, it was very good. I'm satisfied with this meeting. Why? Here are some thoughts I sketched while traveling back to Siena.

Lots of talks were about the results and methods of research done by MA and PhD students (myself included) - and this means one of the most important pieces of research, perhaps the most important at all, and the most underrated at the same time. Our community shows a strong connection between education and research. Making this connection stronger is part of our habits, I believe