The Hidden Costs of Archaeology

Summary

Archaeologists have realized for a long time that in the struggle to fund field work, working on publications and the cost of publishing archaeological results are often not covered. With the increase in digital recording and digital publishing this problem is not solved. On the contrary, it is exacerbated by a number of additional tasks and responsibilities. These range from a changing publication model, where open access is becoming increasingly important, and journals request payment to make articles freely available to payments to data archives. Added to that are the costs in time, or in paying salary for the many additional hours that need to be spent on data cleaning and the inclusion of proper metadata with the many file types that make up a modern record of an archaeological area. Publishers are experimenting with different models to include data and there is an expectation that these will be made available for free as well. The other type of costs is more virtual: all the work on collecting, cleaning and publishing data should be recognized as research in itself, and this requires an investment in time, energy and reputation from archaeologists who are in the position to do so.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• The Future of Funding for Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 12164