It has been a few months since our last update; our entire team with project partners and collaborators having been diligently working on the production, processing and dissemination of data across the project.
With that in mind, we thought it would be useful to look into the archaeological data management lifecycle – from collection to transformation, dissemination and preservation. Data, especially archaeological data, can be interpretative, often incomplete and sometimes imperfect. These qualities make it both exciting to work with and challenging to navigate. Embracing the potential and limitations of such data is a fundamental aspect of the project.
We kick things off with a simple, clickable summary guide, compiled by Elias Michaut (UCAM), drawn from insights provided by expert speakers at the MAEASaM-MAHSA Data Management online workshop held in July this year. This is followed by a contribution from the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences (ZMHS), where Bvocho, Mundopa and Mkenala shed light on their ongoing digitisation work involving the transformation of Zimbabwe’s paper-based sites and monuments records into digital format.
The validation of archaeological sites through ground verification is a pivotal step in the data production process and workflow. In this context, colleagues from Kenya and Tanzania share their recent fieldwork experiences to verify both legacy and remote sensing data for archaeological sites.
We round up this issue with snapshots of some of the events, training and workshops with which the project has been involved in the last couple of months.
We hope you find this issue informative, and we look forward to sending you more updates soon.
Sneak peek
- Archaeological data management: a quick summary guide. By Elias Michaut (UCAM)
- The digitisation of ZMHS archives. By Godhi Bvocho, Nyararai Ellen Mundopa and Moses Mkenala – National Museum of Human Sciences (ZMHS)
- From Mombasa to Malindi: an archaeological survey of coastal southern Kenya. By Angela Kabiru, Pamela Ochungo, John Kanyingi, John Munyiri & Franklin Onyango – BIEA & NMK
- Mapping heritage sites in mainland Tanzania. By Thomas Biginagwa, Stephanie Wynne-Jones, Akinbowale Akintayo, Daryl Stump & Titus Ombori – UDSM & UoY