Suvi DEBENJAK1 | Isto HUVILA2 | Peter TÓTH3
(1Inari Software GMBH, Graz, Austria | 2Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden | 3Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia)

Keywords: archaeology, knowledge production, knowledge work, practices

Abstract:
Archaeology and cultural heritage have often enjoyed a particular status and captured the public imagination. They have become the focus for the expression and negotiation of cultural identities from European to intra-national level. Currently, nations and the European community are making huge efforts in creating technologies, infrastructures and standards for digitization, preservation and dissemination of archaeological knowledge. However, in contrast to the amount of practical and scholarly work that has been devoted to developing and appropriating techniques and methods, and to case studies to demonstrate their viability, there is relatively little research on how digital information, tools and infrastructures are used and what their impact on research and practice in archaeology and heritage field is.
Therefore the aim of the presentation will be to introduce the ongoing COST action “Archaeological practices and knowledge work in the digital environment” (ARKWORK) CA15201, which is targeted at a better understanding of archaeological and heritage practices and the creation of a transdisciplinary network that brings together the work of researchers and their projects. The project aims are implemented through four working groups which closely cooperate within and between themselves. Working groups cover interrelated topics, such as archaeological fieldwork, museum collections and data repositories, relation to global communities as well as archaeological scholarly practices.
Such a transdiciplinary community will strengthen and consolidate the current state-of-the-art, as represented in leading research in the field and will provide a guidance to diverse stakeholders responsible for making, regulating, preserving, managing and using archaeological knowledge.

Innovation:
building transdiciplinary network of researchers on European level

References:

  1. Huvila, Perspectives to Archaeological Information in the Digital Society. Uppsala: Department of ALM, Uppsala University, 2014.
  2. Vatanen, “The Archaeologist Files: An approach to the digital contextualization of archaeological finds in user adaptive information systems”, in Archaeological Informatics: Pushing the Envelope CAA 2001. Computer Applications and Quantitative methods in Archaeology. Proceedings of the 29th Conference, Gotland, April 2001, 2002.