Grey Literature, Academic Engagement, and Preservation by Understanding

Abstract

________________________________________________________________Archaeological practice in the UK produces considerable amounts of reportage that is never intended for formal publication. This grey literature forms a resource which has, historically, been poorly used by academic archaeologists, and problems of access have been blamed for this. This paper argues that this problem does not lie with accessing the resource, but has been of awareness, attitude, and understanding. Structures are now in place which can allow the comprehensive interpretation and reinterpretation of fieldwork results by any archaeologists who choose to do so. ________________________________________________________________Résumé: La pratique de l'archéologie au Royaume-Uni génère de nombreux reportages qui ne sont jamais destinés à la publication officielle. Cette littérature grise forme une source d'information qui, par le passé, a été mal utilisée par les archéologues universitaires, qui ont reproché des problèmes d'accès. Cette étude soutient que ce problème ne se situe pas au niveau de l'accès aux sources d'information, mais au niveau de la prise de conscience, de l'attitude et de la compréhension. Les structures sont désormais en place pour permettre une interprétation générale et une nouvelle interprétation des résultats des travaux sur le terrain par les archéologues qui choisissent de le faire. ________________________________________________________________Resumen: La práctica arqueoló gica en el Reino Unido produce gran cantidad de material informativo que nunca se destina a su publicació n formal. Esta literatura gris supone un recurso que, histó ricamente, ha sido desaprovechado por los arqueó logos académicos, de lo cual se ha responsabilizado a los problemas de acceso. En este trabajo se argumenta que el problema no reside en el acceso al recurso, sino más bien en la falta de concienciació n, actitud y compresió n. Ya existen estructuras que permiten la interpretació n y reinterpretació n exhaustiva de los resultados de campo por parte de cualquier arqueó logo que lo desee. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Excavating Archaeological Texts: Applying Digital Humanities to the Study of Archaeological Thought and Banal Nationalism

“…For the period 1945-2017, all Dutch language journal articles, book series, monographs, Ph.D. theses, and excavation/survey reports were collected. Reports produced within the context of developer-led archaeology were also included, since they have become a cornerstone of the archaeological field and are an important source used in the development of archaeological knowledge (Aitchison 2010;Evans 2015). Short discovery notes were excluded because they lack analytical depth.…”

Publishing Archaeological Excavations at the Digital Turn

“…The greatly increased amount of data and variety of types of data makes the exhaustive publication of a large excavation archive in a traditional format an overwhelming task for the authors (Thomas 1991;McCarthy et al 1992;Hodder 1989). While relatively small catalogs and tables of data in print form are readable and digestible, in larger quantities, this information also becomes awkward for the reader to consume (Aitchison 2010). Summary charts and graphics are widely used by specialists to get around this problem, together with the selection of exemplar artifacts.…”

Teaching Archaeological Heritage Management. Towards a Change in Paradigms

“…The working-conference acknowledged that 'grey literature', in countries where it exists, constitutes an important record in itself, but that it often simply describes the findings of survey and excavation and data and lacks detailed and insightful contextual research and analysis. Furthermore, it has often been ignored by academic archaeologists (Aitchison 2010). It thereby sometimes fails in its contribution to knowledge.…”

“…The tardiness of integrating research knowledge within HM rests to a great extent in the failure to disseminate quality research derived from HM practice (Gowen 2013), (although see Aitchison (2010) for a critique of the assumption that grey literature research is always of lower quality). In addition, many tertiary educators with a solid knowledge of academic research may have little understanding or experience of HM practice in the field.…”