Current Practice in Digital Public & Community Archaeology

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carrie Heitman.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve been involved in various forms of "digital archaeology" with different forms of public and community outreach. In this paper I profile the more and less successful forms of public and community engagement entailed in these digital efforts. I also discuss current efforts to concurrently engage in humanistic and scientific forms of digital archaeology through communities of collaboration. SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gabriel Moshenska.

This paper offers an overview of recent and emerging trends in digital public archaeology in the UK. It draws on examples of research and practice in public archaeology by academic, museum, amateur and professional archaeologists engaged in public engagement activities, as well as the emerging field of crowd-sourced and/or crowd-funded public archaeology in which digital public engagement has played a leading role. I take a sceptical view of some of the more extravagant claims made for digital...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lynne Goldstein.

Since 2008, Michigan State University has had an official Campus Archaeology Program (http://campusarch.msu.edu) which trains students, engages with a varied public, and mitigates all ground-disturbing activity undertaken by the campus, regardless of whether it falls under state or federal law. I created and continue to direct this unique program. No other campus has the extensive mandate, budget, or administrative support that we have been able to create, and while I oversee all activities,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elizabeth Bollwerk. Eve Hargrave. Elizabeth Konwest. Rebecca Simon.

There is no doubt that public archaeology is delving into the digital realm. While the web provides a number of new and exciting avenues for the public to interact with archaeology, its complexity also introduces new challenges for individuals and organizations who want to use websites as an engagement tool. This paper discusses recent efforts to redesign a major online resource for public archaeology: the SAA's Archaeology For the Public website. The authors first provide a brief history of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Gann.

With a wide range of digital tools now being successfully utilized for capturing and modeling archaeological data, public archaeologists have realized how entertainment software (aka video games) can be repurposed to create compelling visualizations and interactive experiences to share our research on the people, landscapes, places, and objects of the past. Archaeology Southwest, with support from the National Science Foundation, recently began an effort to develop one such interactive...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ethan Watrall.

The spaces we inhabit and interact with on a daily basis are made up of layers of cultural activity that are, quite literally, built up over time. While museum exhibits, archaeological narratives, and public archaeology programs communicate this heritage, they do not generally allow for interactive, place-based, and individually driven exploration by the public. In recent years, mobile and augmented reality applications have offered both platforms and models for mobile heritage experiences that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chiara Bonacchi. Andrew Bevan. Daniel Pett. Adi Keinan-Schoonbaert.

A core aim of public archeology is to study and strengthen the public value of archaeological research. In pursuing this goal, the MicroPasts project sees archaeological research, public engagement with archaeology and the study of the cultural, social and economic implications of citizen participation as overlapping and mutually reinforcing areas, that can generate high quality new resources (data, enhanced interpretations, skills, funding, etc.) and processes (e.g. methodological innovations,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Holly Wright. Michael Charno.

The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) continually explores new ways to make the data we hold more useful and accessible. One of these avenues has been the development of a mobile app called "Archaeology Britain", which we recently created in partnership with the British Library. This paper outlines the development of this partnership, and our attempt to create an iPad app with unique and interesting content from both organisations. The app presents antiquarian drawings, paintings and maps for some...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Reinhard. Shawn Graham.

While there is an extensive literature on the pedagogical uses of video games in STEM education, and a comparitvely smaller literature for langagues, literature, and history, there is a serious dearth of scholarship surrounding videogames in their role as vectors for public archaeology. Moreover, video games work as 'digital public archaeology' in the ways their imagined pasts within the games deal with monuments, monumentality, and their own 'lore'. In this presentation, we play the past to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorna-Jane Richardson.

This paper examines the impact of the democratic promises of Internet communication technologies, social, and participatory media on the practice of public archaeology in the UK. This work is based on my doctoral research undertaken from 2010-2014 and addresses the following issues: the provision of authoritative archaeological information online; barriers to participation; policy and organisational approaches to evaluating success and archiving; community formation and activism, and the impact...