The situation is similar in a lot of places; I have a stack of various “guidelines” from Germany, the USA, Canada, etc.: basically the guidelines stipulate things like file formats, numbering on drawings, etc.; after that, data “quality” tends to be defined in nebulous terms like “scientific standards” or “professionally recognized” standards & so on. These sometimes/often have to be accepted by some regulatory body, but then are filed away as being confidential. Here in parts of Germany there are other reasons for suffering (licenses are given out for excavations, but no one seems to know who can call themselves “archaeologists”).

Standardization: necessary for comparing data, if only in a database. Consider comparing colour lists using Munsell or RGB codes rather than vague descriptions like “sand coloured” or “beige” or whatever.

From: The Forum for Information Standards in Heritage (FISH) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of NCampling

Dear Fishers,

Let’s take the example of Ontario.  Developers who are required to do archaeological reports as part of their development hire commercial outfits (which require a licence to practice), there are no public sector archaeologists.  They submit their reports to the Ontario Government.  There is no ‘standard’ as to what constitutes an acceptable report, though they submit their reports to the Ontario Government archaeologists.  However, because the reports are considered ‘commercially confidential’ the government archaeologists can make little or no comment on the reports, and cannot release the reports to the wider community.  Producers of grey literature know only about what they dig and report on.  There is no general access to grey literature, no peer assessment of the results, and Ontario archaeology is suffering accordingly.  Indeed, there may be only one or two academics actually studying / teaching Ontario archaeology at present, although there are plenty of licensed, commercial practitioners (though how they know much about any particular local archaeology, I just don’t know!).    

However, I am also wary of the exact opposite approach where everything is reported by word list, format and content type.  Human endeavour is never neat and tidy.  Language and concepts change – bad now means good, wicked means great – and today’s standards may not be easily translatable in the future.  A bit like the old floppy disks: now unreadable.  Moreover, there may be a risk of a kind of totalitarianism, like New Speak, to go down this route.  Overly standardised approaches have always led to blinkered approaches to enquiry and ho-hum reportage, to a death of archaeology as equally bad as that in Ontario.