Archaeology in Cyber-space
Claire Smith and Sara Champion
Globalisation is dissolving the geographic boundaries which formerly shaped people’s understandings of themselves and the world. It is establishing a context for changes in archaeology that are at an unprecedented rate and scale. Modern communication technologies provide the means not only for developing regional and global networks but also for establishing radically different ways of ‘doing’ archaeology. As archaeology moves throughout cyber-space, there arises the possibility of transforming archaeology in innovative and effective ways.
This session will focus on how the use of cyber-space is affecting three areas of archaeology:
• Research.
• Teaching.
• Promotion.
For archaeologists, this is a time opportunity as well as of risk. On the one hand, is the opportunity for archaeologists to promote the values of their discipline to new audiences and to empower themselves through quickly becoming familiar with each others quality innovations, successful strategies and conceptual advances. On the other hand, there are risks associated with the regulation and authentication of information and with the ownership, control and protection of intellectual property. Other important issues relate to access and equity, to the commodification of archaeology and to the impact of communication technologies on the roles and structures of archaeology.
papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Champion Breaking the barriers: archaeology, adult education and the Internet
Hall Teaching Archaeological Excavation without Disservice: the TARDIS solution
Hirst A World Atlas of Archaeology on the Web
Holtorf Doctoral Theses in the Age of Hypermedia: a case-study
McConnochie Virtual Archaeology and Indigenous Understandings: the construction of an interactive virtual archaeology site
Smith Teaching Archaeology in Cyberspace