Computing, GIS and Archaeology in the UK

Making History, on BBC Radio 4, had an article yesterday on the plight of commercial archaeology in UK during the recession. It made for some sobering listening.

To understand what all the fuss is about, you need to get over the idea that archaeologists are all volunteers, either school kids or retired, or perhaps have a nice research job in a University. Some are, and some do, but there’s a whole bunch of others who are trying to make a living from archaeology, in the same way that they would with any other job.

So, the Institute for Archaeologists, the professional body for archaeologists in the UK, have been profiling the profession since 2002, looking at the number of practising archaeologists, the average wage, etc. In 2007, at the peak of the housing boom, there were 7000 practising archaeologists, of which approx 4000 were working in commercial archaeology, with the rest working in academia or part of the planning team in councils. Since then, nearly 700 jobs have been lost, equating to 10% of that all-time high, and it’s fair to say that there will have been more losses in the commercial sector than in academia or councils. On the radio show yesterday they were suggesting up to 1 in 5 commercial archaeologists but I can’t find any figures to back that up.

The reason for this downturn is that commercial archaeology is now tied so tightly into the planning regime in the UK, and is funded almost entirely by developers, so if there is no building work going on, then there is no archaeology being done…

Hopefully things will start picking up as the government try and inject stimulus money into infrastructure, but it’s going to be a difficult year for everyone.

…Actually no one who commented on last week’s post, though thanks for all the great suggestions!

In the end we went for ZooOS, suggested by Jeremy Ottevanger on the Antiquist Mailing List (though the capitalisation is all ours). We like it because it’s got mixed etymological roots, coming from both Greek (zoo =  greek for animals) and Roman (os = bone in latin) but also because it has that essential Open Source ring to it. It’s pronounced “zeus” by the way…

Now we have a name, we also have a launchpad site!

Thanks again for all the suggestions- we think we might borrow one or two of them for other projects, so watch this space!

We are about to start work on an open source database for recording animal bones on archaeological sites, but we can’t think of a name for it! So- crowd-sourcing and all that- I thought I’d open it out to people to come up with suggestions (clean and polite only or we’ll be terribly disappointed with you). I guess we might even be able to scrape together a prize for the one we choose, if you like second-hand conference schwag! You’ll certainly get credited if we choose you so your name will live on for posterity. How about that?

So- suggestions in the comments, or you can contact me using the form, whatever you like…

I’ve been meaning to post for a while on Oxford Archaeology’s Open Archaeology Project, also known as our “Open Ethos”, then what do you know, Joseph posts about it and says it so well that I might just as well repeat his post verbatim. I won’t though- then you might go and read the other blog, and wander around on the internet for a while finding out interesting new things . Pop back here when you’re done, if you like!

In short, “Open Archaeology” comprises three strands: open standards, open access, and open source. We see this  as the only logical way of fulfilling our remit as a commercial archaeological organisation, and an educational charity. Our job is to record the cultural remains that are damaged or destroyed by development. Our remit is to make those records available in perpetuity, to anyone who wants to see them. At the end of the day, pretty objects in museums are of little use without the background information that gives them context and fires the imagination.

While the three strands are not the same thing (as they are often made out to be), open data is useless without open standards and open software. Open software is useless without open data and open standards. You get the idea.

I’ve recently been asked if our commitment to open source software was a financial decision, or an ethical one. It’s both, I suppose, but our Open Archaeology project should show you that it’s part of a bigger thing than simply saving money on licenses.