HOW TO SAFEGUARD ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA FOR FUTURE ARCHAEOLOGISTS
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-12-08

There is an ongoing debate in The Netherlands about specialists analysis and selection methods during and after excavations. Archaeological research in The Netherlands is developer funded, which means that finances play a role in the process of making choices in post-excavation. The developer generally wants to spend as little funds as possible and the archaeologist is looking for the minimally acceptable level of specialist analysis in order to answer the research questions of the projects. This causes friction because the academic world always wants to do more and the developer always wants to do less. The central question in the debate in our country is therefore: which minimal level is acceptable to safeguard the research results?

I would like to take this discussion a step further. Despite the fact that there is a lot of debate between all the players in the archaeological world (archaeologists, specialists, the academic world and the developer) one crucial fact is often overlooked. It is remarkable that the route from find analysis towards permanent storage is hardly ever a part of the discussion we address in this session. The specialist- and sitereport is generally considered the end-product of an archaeological project, which is not correct. Permanent storage of our data and archaeological finds should be considered the end-point of an archaeological project. It is the place where we store our information so that we can access it in the future and use it for new research. We can ask ourselves whether the process from specialists analysis and artefact reporting to permanent storage allows and safeguards future research. This paper discusses ways of necessary cooperation between archaeologists/specialists and curators to achieve this goal.


Author(s): Grimme, Anne Hiske (Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken)