Is It Possible to Please Everyone? Creating an Open Source Finds Database for Finland

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Collaborative and Community-Based Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In this paper I present the work of SuALT: the Finnish Archaeological Finds Recording Linked Open Database (Fi: Suomen arkeologisten löytöjen linkitetty avoin tietokanta). SuALT is still in development, but aims to make it easy and reliable for members of the public to record chance archaeological finds that they discover and to browse other records. Inspired by similar 'citizen science' initiatives in other parts of northern Europe where it is legal for avocationals and others to search for archaeological materials, our multidisciplinary team's challenge is to create a user-friendly, meaningful resource that not only "speaks" to other digital heritage databases within Finland and the rest of Europe, but that also responds to the specific needs and conditions of Finnish society. As well as being mindful of Finnish cultural heritage legislation, the team is very aware that there are a number of different communities within Finland, not least the indigenous Sámi minorities, for whom the meanings of their cultural heritage may be at odds with official policy. Our project's aspiration to make cultural heritage open and accessible to all faces challenges not only of whether all data should truly be open, but also on definitions of heritage itself.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Collaborative and Community-Based Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24712