The Linking Open Data dataset cloud by Fenng

Exciting news for UK data this week as the new UK data website, www.data.gov.uk, had its official launch. It’s been in beta for a while but is now fully functional and open for business, providing access to a range of datasets. Importantly, as well as the more traditional download of files in formats such as Comma Seperated Variable (csv) text files, the site promises to provide information in the form of Linked Data. This is a massive advance towards the semantic web with data freely available to be used and reused by all manner of web apps, promising virtually limitless potential; graphed, mapped, and mashed up in a myriad of ways.

This news follows hot on the heels of the consultation document on the future of Ordnance Survey data which promises to make more high quality map resources far more widely available. So in addition to having access to government data such as crime, education and health statistics, we will soon (assuming the consultation goes the way it ought to) have access to basemaps to plot it all on and administrative area boundaries to analyse by.

» Continue reading “heritage.data.gov.uk …?”

A talk given earlier this year at Strode College based largely on a talk given earlier this year at the IfA conference. The main aim was to show the students some of the ways in which technology is used in contemporary archaeological practice to help disseminate findings, with numerous examples from all over the place; credits to all those people and organisations mentioned. Topics covered included data standards, GIS, ontologies and terminology through to innovative uses of the web and so-called web2.0 services such as blogs, twitter, flickr and the like. Videos from the day are over on Vimeo. » Continue reading “Public Access through technology; Using archaeological computing to interact with wider audiences in new and engaging ways”

I’ve just been watching the Time Team special Secrets of Stonehenge; very interesting programme. The theoretical basis regarding stone commemorating the ancestors and the links between Durrington Walls and Stonehenge, linked by the river Avon, have been well discussed in the literature (see Parker Pearson & Ramilisonina. 1998) but it is really good to see how the evidence arising from the Stonehenge Riverside Project fits in to Mike Parker-Pearson’s ideas. Excellent contributions from Mike Pitts regarding the Aubrey Holes and how they are really stone sockets and Josh Pollard on the practices of excarnation and dealing with the dead in prehistory. Putting all the information together, the idea that it was an early farming community who built a bluestone circle to commemorate their ancestors, later becoming the sarsen megalithic structure we see today, certainly changes the established story; English Heritage are going to have to update their guidebooks! » Continue reading “Secrets of Stonehenge”

There aren’t many folk who can claim to have dug at Stonehenge (and I’m not one of them!) but I was lucky enough to see the ongoing excavations first hand this week. And i was only saying recently about getting up there to take some pictures! What a unique site and what a small trench; archaeology in a nutshell (or fish tank as one correspondant described it as groups of academics were shown round all day on Wednesday, completely diverting the site directors from their activities). Thanks to the directors for arranging for there to be such an open day (and providing such a truly fantastic opportunity for us researchers). Indeed the whole access to information side of things is exemplary: There are also big screens in the Timewatch tent showing live images from the trench providing even greater access not to mention the Smithsonian Magazine blog and BBC video blogs.

As regards the dig itself, it was interesting to see the bluestone socket and how deep it was (massive compared to the sarsen sockets, perhaps indicative of techniques more commonly applied to timber posts than stone settings) and entertaining to hear how pottery had been discovered in the backfill of the previous excavations (doh!). I was also surprised to learn that the concrete used in recent history to, ahem, shore up the monument was actually reinforced with steels, hence no decent magnetometer results within the circle. This recent history is equally as interesting as the prehistory!

The amount of disturbance to the bluestones is also fascinating and does suggest there is something special going on with them and different from other stones used in Stonehenge and other stone circles. Combined with the observation that most of the bluestones have in fact been removed totally from the site, this would suggest they were important enough to some people to invest considerable effort in their removal. And of course, transporting them from Wales in the first place was hardly a casual decision, involving considerable investment of time and energy. The idea that they had mysterious healing powers would go some way to explaining this unusual activity, why they were brought to the site in the first place and their subsequent role in activities at the site up to the present day.