A Collaborative Model for Lithic Shape Digitization in Museum Settings

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic halted scientific research across the world, revealing the vulnerabilities of field-based disciplines to disruption. To ensure resilience in the face of future emergencies, archaeology needs to be more sustainable with international collaboration at the forefront. This article presents a collaborative data collection model for documenting lithics using digital photography and physical measurements taken in-situ by local collaborators. Data capture protocols to optimise standardisation are outlined, and guidelines are provided for data curation, storage and sharing. Adopting collaborative research strategies can have long-term advantages beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, by encouraging knowledge-sharing between international collaborators, decreasing emissions associated with archaeological research, and improving accessibility for those who are not able to travel for access to international samples. This article proposes that archaeology should use the COVID-19 pandemic as a catalyst for change through encouraging deeper collaborations and the development of remote models of science as a complement to in-person research.

KEYWORDS:

• Scientific collaboration
• Archaeological practice
• Data sharing
• Artefact photography
• Stone tools

Acknowledgements

I would first like to thank the collaborators on this project: Sharon Manura, Simon Mboya, Christine Maroma, and Emmanuel Ndiema (National Museums of Kenya, Kenya), Behailu Habte, Yosef Tefera, and Sahleselasie Melaku (National Museum of Ethiopia, Ethiopia), Benjamin Marais and Wendy Black (Iziko Museums of South Africa, South Africa), Struan Henderson, Katherine Elmes, and Curtis Marean (Mossel Bay Archaeology Project, South Africa), Mouna Qazzih and Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer (Institut National des Sciences de l'Archéologie et du Patrimoine, Morocco), and Hélène Monod, Stéphanie Bonilauri, and Roland Nespoulet (Musée de l’Homme, France). Without you, this project would not be possible and so I am extremely grateful for your support, guidance, and continued collaboration, as well as many of your feedback on this article. I also thank my collaborators, Paloma de la Peña and Amy Way, for their ongoing support and cooperation on my project. I would like to acknowledge the site permit holders who allowed access to the archaeological material. I am also grateful to my supervisors, Matt Grove and Kimberly Plomp, who have been instrumental to the development of this project. I thank Ardern Hulme-Beaman for their helpful comments on this article and Rebecca Wragg-Sykes for assistance translating the protocols into French. I am very gracious for the flexibility and support of my funders (see details of funding). I also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback and comments on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Lithic Studies Society (Jacobi Bursary Grantee, 2020), The Leakey Foundation (Movement, interaction, and structure: modelling population networks and cultural diversity in the African Middle Stone Age), The Wenner-Gren Foundation [grant number 10157] and the Arts and Humanities Research Council [grant number AH/R012792/1].

Notes on contributors

Lucy Timbrell

Lucy Timbrell is a doctoral researcher at the University of Liverpool.