VERA @ CAAUK 2008 York

Myself (Mat), Emma, Claire and Mike R attended the 2008 Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology UK Conference which was held at York this year. This was a great opportunity to meet other people interested in using computers as tools for archaeology. Emma gave a talk on the VERA project during one of the sessions.

Two highlights from a VERA perspective were making a new contact with a film school interested in visiting the Silchester dig to make mini documentaries and talking to guys from Oxford Archaeology about their strategy to do away with pen/paper recording at their digs. Here are some pictures from the conference.

The River Ouse on the morning of the conference.

A random street in York, you can get a feel for the age of the place.

The wine reception at DIG, which is an interactive museum of archaeology, run by the York Archaeological Trust. During the evening Claire found out one of the part-time staff was a film student who explained that they were always looking for work placements and experience. We have been following this up with his tutor to try and set up a project at Silchester during the summer.

The picture shows a Linux-based phone called the Neo1973. During the conference I spent a lot of time hanging out with and chatting to Joseph Reeves and Paul Miles from Oxford Archaeology. They have been thinking about digital recording during excavations for a while now and have explored technologies such as the One Laptop Per Child machine. They are currently thinking of trialling a Linux mobile phone with the goal of removing pens and paper from trench completely and making all data ‘born digital’. This will be interesting to follow and I wish them luck prising the pens and pencils from the cold dead fingers of the archaeologists.

On the last day of the conference we visited the Hungate Dig in York. This is an large excavation (biggest in the past 25 years in York) right in the middle of the city center.