Open Archeology

The concept of the Open Archeology has two different meanings:

• the use of Open Source Software for archaeological purposes;
• the open publication of the research’s theories, methods, processes and results.

To work “openly” the project work in both directions simultaneously integrating OpenSource, CreativeCommons and Web 2.0 to analyze and diffuse. As for the OpenSource the project uses:

• UBUNTU Linux 7.01 as operative system;
• GISKNOPPIX as secondary mobile operative system;
• OpenOffice 2.1 as a office suite;
• GIMP and InkScape for the Graphics;
• GRASS and QGIS for all the GIS operation;
• GoogleEarth, GoogleMaps, Worldwind for the 3D visualization of sat data.

All the software as open sources permit to create, pursue and publish a research without any kind of cost. For more information about:

http://www.arc-team.com/

Moreover other resources not strictly softwares are:

• Web 2.0 (social web as blog, tags and aggregators);
• CreativeCommons licenses;
• Open Access.

As Web 2.0 you are reading it now, this blog that is also claimed by Technorati and “tagged” by del.icio.us and Google. I personally think that to make a blog, mixing the truly research’s prochesses and outcomes together with personal thoughts, observation and “joke”, it’s a great way to give a touch to the archaeological work as it flows to and from the mind, giving to it all the characteristics of a “social” work. In this direction are working the Tags and the Aggregators able to share the information simply and fastly.

The whole part is strictly connected to the “social” publishing of the whole research, a way to communicate its on the Web, the most powerful word wide media, could be protect by the licences of the CreativeCommons (particulary for this Blog the Italian 2.5). That opens a serie of considerations about the world of “normal” publishing, expecially for young researchers working on young project. Except for the Congresses, at least the most used way to diffuse new research, other way it’s initially difficult and full of limitation among the scientific community, and the poor parts of it mostly. The CC license “au-contraire” permits (for example here in the Blog) a sure way to diffuse and share saving the rights of the works.

Finally the complex version, actually not used by the project but perspective, the Open Access archive to create repository of whole work.

To conclude a question:

Why Open Archeology could be important for the archaeologists?

Simply because the possibility to save the research moneys for on-field research and for the gathering of resources it’s just an advantage. Or also because the work of the archaeologist has a “social” importance, to spread the past of us, the past of the people instead the past of the institutions.

Simone Bonzano, PhD student, Freie Universitaet Berlin.

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work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Italy License.