14 posts tagged with "Citizen Science"

The Bronze Age Index (BAI)

Authors: Daniel Pett

There's something quite magical about the idea of an object that is still safely in our stores being given to a child to hold and experience so far away. Back in 2013, our team was awarded Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding to work on the MicroPasts project, which in part focused on the British Museum's locked away index cards that made up the inventory of Bronze Age implements…

Hello MicroPasts, thrilled to meet you!

Authors: Adi Keinan-Schoonbaert

My name is Adi, and I’m a research associate at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. Earlier this month I joined the MicroPasts team – and I’m especially excited about this project as it feeds into my background and interests in so many ways. Before coming to London I was an archaeologist and academic back home in Israel. A few years ago, I created the West Bank and East Jerusalem Archaeological…

Crowd-sourcing

Authors: Daniel Pett

What do we mean by crowd-sourcing? Crowd-sourcing is a relatively new digital method for collecting information, services or funds from a large group of people, in small chunks, over the internet. This practice emerged less than a decade ago in the commercial sector, where companies had been exploring ways of out-sourcing labour to potentially interested people around the world. It is sometimes…

Online Transcription

Authors: Jennifer Wexler

How can it be useful? Letters, documents and literary works are useful for several different kinds of research into the human past. For example, transcribing old excavation records can make them more amenable to spatial and quantitative analysis, whilst transcribing historical documents from past literate societies can be compared and contrasted with the evidence from contemporary objects. Other…

In the Lens: George and Agnes Horsfield’s Photographs

Authors: Amara Thornton

Amara Thornton (British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow, UCL Institute of Archaeology) My life has been so lonely – until I met you – dear Comrade … my extraordinary friendship with you – which I gradually found was absorbing the whole of my life – I did not in the least understand – you stood as pure intellect to me. – George Horsfield to Agnes Conway, c. November 1931 Everyone loves a love…

MicroPasts at Digital Humanities 2014, Lausanne

Authors: Daniel Pett

The project has just been represented at the Digital Humanities 2014 conference in Lausanne, Switzerland.

MicroPasts Crowd-funding

Authors: Daniel Pett Chiara Bonacchi

Hello! We’ve just launched the latest part of the MicroPasts project: a crowd-funding website. Have a look and see if you can help. Through this website, it is possible to raise up to £5,000 to fund archaeological or historical research projects that have been developed and will be undertaken collaboratively by professionals with institutional links (e.g. working in universities, museums…

Later Bronze Age Ornaments

Authors: Alex Davies

Bronze Age ornaments form a major category of metal artefact. Those made of gold are some of the most captivating prehistoric objects known to us. They are probably the most personal objects surviving as they were worn on the body and, as is still true today, were a daily and ever-present signaller of identity, status and an individual’s personality. The term ornament is rather cumbersome and old…

The Mary Rose & MicroPasts Collaboration, Week 1

Authors: Chiara Bonacchi

On Friday 22nd May, the Mary Rose Trust and MicroPasts teams launched a collaborative 3D photo-masking pilot project on the MicroPasts crowdsourcing platform. The aim is to create 3D models for three of the museum’s artefacts. We are really grateful to MicroPasts collaborators for helping complete 37% of the application already (as of 29th May)! It is exciting to see people engaging with the…

MicroPasts Knowledge Exchange Workshops

Authors: Chiara Bonacchi

Two back-to-back workshops were held on 23 September at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. The aim of the MicroPasts Knowledge Exchanges workshops was to share the practices, shortcomings and achievements experienced by the MicroPasts project and use these as fodder for wider discussion about the use and evaluation of both crowd-sourcing and crowd-funding within a broader heritage ‘ecology’. Below…

Crowdsourced

Authors: Lisa Cardy

I’ve been a MicroPasts contributor for around two months now, a good time to write this post about why I wanted to be one of the ‘sourced’ crowd and what I’ve got out of it so far. To begin with, here’s my brief summary of MicroPasts: it’s a web-based collection of archaeological projects that anyone can get involved with. The MicroPasts site hosts lots of content, some of which I’ll return to…

Wonders of the Deep: Bronze Age Finds from the River Thames in the Bronze Age Index

Authors: Jennifer Wexler

Our penultimate Bronze Age Index project focuses on Bronze Age swords from the River Thames. Finds from the Thames and other watery locations in Britain and Northern Europe have fascinated scholars for many years, and recent excavations at Must Farm and Flag Fen show the incredible importance of riverine environments to prehistoric peoples. In a sense, Thames finds have been central to the study…

The MicroPasts conference on YouTube

Authors: Chiara Bonacchi

If you missed the MicroPasts conference on ‘Crowdsourcing and Crowdfunding our Human Past’, on 31 March 2015, you can now catch-up! We have published the videos of the presentations given on the day on our MicroPasts YouTube channel. Have a look and let us know any thoughts or questions! Chiara

Archeologia Pubblica e Crowdsourcing al Museo Egizio

Authors: Chiara Bonacchi

Archeologia e Pubblico. Comprendere come la ricerca e i risultati da essa conseguiti divengono (o meno) parte del nostro vivere contemporaneo, studiare le implicazioni etiche, sociali, economiche, politiche derivanti dall’analisi archeologica della cultura materiale e dalla sua comunicazione e fruizione in senso più lato. Queste sono le tematiche affrontate dal settore dell’Archeologia Pubblica…