Data Publishing and Archaeology's Information Ecosystem

Archaeologists increasingly employ various digital tools in the documentation of fieldwork and post-excavation analysis. In doing so, they create vast amounts of data. Archaeologists need to create such rich bodies of digital data because archaeology is often destructive; that is, an excavated area can never be excavated in exactly the same way again. However, professional norms that only reward conventional article and book publication endanger these irreplaceable data. Typically, when archaeologists publish, the majority of the underlying data (representing significant fieldwork hours and expense) are unreported. In this paper, we argue that archaeology needs to adopt publication norms and reward systems better suited for the twenty-first century research environment. We explore efforts to make high quality publication in archaeology more accessible and data rich. Cultivating a more open and dynamic “information ecosystem” in archaeology will spark new research and teaching opportunities and help better integrate archaeology's knowledge contributions within the larger context of humanistic and scientific understanding.