How community archaeology can make use of open data to achieve further its objectives

Abstract

This review paper begins with a discussion of the extent to which the expansion of the web has caused fundamental changes in the ways that communities are engaging with participatory events and of how technological developments are providing new platforms for communication. Accompanying these developments there have also been rapid changes in the make-up of communities, which in turn requires that we think differently about the nature of the community itself. This paper argues that the established methodological approaches of community archaeology must be reconsidered from the perspective of the web, so that we can better integrate online communication with current forms of community engagement. It focuses on the impact of open data on community archaeology's current methods for working with communities and concludes that the project-based approach to community archaeology and the traditional hierarchical structures of archaeological practice are no longer appropriate in the face of the open approaches to knowledge fostered by the web. The paper also discusses important issues that arise when integrating open data into community archaeology, including Open Data Commons licensing, the reuse of data and the re-contextualisation of legacy data.

Keywords:

• Community archaeology
• public archaeology
• open data
• World Wide Web
• social media