INTERNET, ARCHAEOLOGY ON

Archaeological adoption of the Internet is considered in the context of broader trends in scholarly communication and e-commerce. The impact of electronic publication on archaeology and the growth of e-journals is discussed. The deep web, and the rich content available from on-line databases and other web resources is also considered. The transience of the web, and problems of digital preservation is addressed. The use of the internet for more community based interactions and the growth of internet discussion groups, web blogs, and news feeds, is also discussed. The Internet has been seen as a great democratiser of archaeological knowledge, but others claim it creates a new technocractic elite, and restricts access to the developed world. Finally, the problem of resource discovery is raised, and the difficulties of finding authoritative information. Does the future lie in greater adoption of metadata standards and the development of the semantic web, or does Google have all the answers?