Mobile Technology and the Citizen Archaeologist

     In the exciting field of Museum Studies!.... a term often gets thrown around in the literature, yet rarely see the light of day in real world application (sound familiar?).  Coinciding with the wide-scale adoption of several prominent forms of social media in the past few years, the term "Citizen Curator" has emerged to describe a new paradigm in the "diffusion of cultural heritage" (another phrase that keeps popping up).  A "Citizen Curator" has been loosely defined, but here is my attempt to synthesis was has been so far: 1.) the emergence of two-way communication in museum settings as oppose to the conventional one-way; 2.) related to definition '1,' the active participation and contribution of the citizen in the research and interpretative process; and 3.) the access and contribution to impromptu information/data (historical in this case) either through stationary web-sites or location-based cloud servers.
      As you can probably tell, this term and its associated ideas are largely technology driven.  That being said, what better consumer technology is there with web-data accessibility, location-awareness (GPS), and with supported access to almost all forms of electronic media? .........  Yes, mobile technology.

      Now how might that apply to archaeology (other than a museum setting)?  Easy, everyone has a cellphone... and within a few years, most of those phones will have the capabilities of the 'super-smartphones' of today (iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, ect.).  Metal detectors, collectors, or just your average "arrowhead" hunters are no exception, they also have cellphones ....  (And face-it, these hobbies will never end.)    Could this be the thing that bridges the gaping hole in the "it's complicated" relationship between archaeologists and their frustrating foes?  Could there be a middle-ground?

       Well let's think about, above all else what is the bare-minimum that archaeologists would like to see from these activities? ... Yep, a little bit of context.  And quite frankly, with the wide-scale adoption of geotagging photos, location-based Tweets and Facebook statuses, and the plethora of location-based apps out there; adopting these methods would be a piece of cake.  A similar concept already exists across the Atlantic:  The Portable Antiquities Scheme.  [Please visit this site now or when you finish this post, a very innovative concept.]  So there you go, take the concept of this site (contextualizing the finds of metal-detectors, collectors, ect.) and go one step further to offering the ability to log exact coordinates, information, photos, ect. from the field as items are found. And wow, want to know where to start in survey work or look for parallel finds?  ... There you go.

       Some of you might be thinking that this is unethical or a terrible idea and will only promote more looting and the destruction of more sites.  But I would actually argue the opposite.  One could argue that you have a greater sensitivity to archaeological material once you have been educated about the importance of context, as The Portable Antiquities Scheme has proven and accomplished.  And you also have to face reality, in areas rich with history, you will never put an end the the citizens' passion for the past; but through the interactivity and inclusiveness of the proposed "Citizen Archaeologist." you do have the opportunity to contextualize that passion.

        Whether you ever comment on blogs or not, please consider leaving a comment on this post.  I will be actively pursing the ideas outlined above and would love some hard criticism (good or bad).  Please let me know what you think about this emerging possibility.      



Image References: (PhoneAdmin 2010); (Nighthawking 2009)