Capturing the Silences in Digital Archaeological Knowledge

Abstract

The availability and accessibility of digital data are increasingly significant in the creation of archaeological knowledge with, for example, multiple datasets being brought together to perform extensive analyses that would not otherwise be possible. However, this makes capturing the silences in those data—what is absent as well as present, what is unknown as well as what is known—a critical challenge for archaeology in terms of the suitability and appropriateness of data for subsequent reuse. This paper reverses the usual focus on knowledge and considers the role of ignorance—the lack of knowledge, or nonknowledge—in archaeological data and knowledge creation. Examining aspects of archaeological practice in the light of different dimensions of ignorance, it proposes ways in which the silences, the range of unknowns, can be addressed within a digital environment and the benefits which may accrue.

Applying automated object detection in archaeological practice: A case study from the southern Netherlands

“…In the following, the knowledge discovery, that is, the extraction of implicit, previously unknown and potentially useful information (McCoy, 2017), resulting from using automated detection in the Midden‐Limburg area is presented. Knowledge discovery can be either of a quantitative or a qualitative nature (Huggett, 2020a). The former concerns the locating of hitherto undocumented archaeological objects.…”

Data Legacies, Epistemic Anxieties, and Digital Imaginaries in Archaeology

“…However, archaeological data go beyond this in the sense that the lived experience is not limited to the present or the future, but also includes past encounters: archaeological data are the detritus of past lives as well as the analytical objects of investigators past, present, and future. The "sequence of contingencies" of archaeological data underlines that engagements with data take place within situated contexts in place and time, which influence what data survive, are recognized, and are considered important or relevant to capture, and what data are set aside, obscured, or otherwise forgotten (e.g., [106] (pp. 7-9)).…”

“…Collins [105], for example, identified what he called a "sequence of contingencies" which intervene between past human action and the archaeologist's perception of that action, and which emphasize the incompleteness of archaeological data (Figure 3). The consequence of the range of cultural, taphonomic, and archaeological factors mean that much is unrepresented, unrecognized, and unknown, and hence archaeological data is "haunted by absences" [69] (p. 178), "shadowy" [4] (p. 204), and characterized by ignorance and silences [106]. As Chippendale describes it, "Archaeology is plagued in many an instance with poorly defined variables (usually thought of as 'data') drawn from ill-understood populations, and with uncertain articulations between the entities whose logical relations we seek to understand."…”

“…So, for example, qualitative data is frequently transformed into quantitative data for analytical purposes using a numeric code to replace a descriptive attribute in a process which entails abstraction and a reduction in the information carried. Resolving data differences arising through variable data recovery and multiple recording methods is a commonplace task in archaeological meta-analyses [106] (pp. 6-7), together with the host of data-cleansing techniques which transform data in often poorly documented ways.…”

“…For instance, most archaeological metadata associated with datasets in support of their reuse typically focus on data discovery rather than how the data originated. Although paradata (process metadata or data provenance) may be seen as incorporating documentation about equipment, expertise, protocols, and procedures (e.g., [121] (p. 45)), if present at all, it currently tends to focus primarily on the means by which the data have been processed rather than the preunderstandings and constraints behind their original capture and processing [106] (pp. 2-3).…”