On the Value of Informal Communication in Archaeological Data Work

2.1 Descriptive/Explanatory Notions of Data

Archaeologists predominantly think about data as highly structured records, collated in a consistent manner, which accurately and precisely document aspects of entities of interest at scale (Hacıgüzeller et al., 2021; Huggett, 2022b). This view of data supports the notion that they are created using objective sensory mechanisms or protocols, which imbues them with an aura of authority, stability, and truthfulness. The concrete, consistent, and corpuscular nature of data imagined in this way helps centralize control over datasets, produce outcomes deriving from formulaic processes, and makes it easier to share findings openly on the web.

As records made about objects and phenomena of interest and that can be consulted, accessed, or used as stand-ins for the objects that they have been constructed to represent, archaeological data conceived of in this way lend themselves to analysis or detailed examination of an object whose aim is to understand more about it, namely aspects of the object that cannot be inferred through direct observation or where direct observation is no longer possible. Two interdependent aspects stand out in this vision of the interplay between data collection and analysis: (1) data are fixed and stable, and (2) data are generated prior to and separate from the analytical processes. In other words, archaeological data are made to take on a role as “immutable mobiles” as described by Latour and Woolgar (1986, p. 76), whereby information is separated from the circumstances through which it was created and is therefore made to speak for itself. This disconnect between processes of data collection and processes of analysis, as manifested through the distribution of tasks across time, place, and situation within the research community, is thus a means of effecting willful ignorance concerning the circumstances through which data come into being. That is, the immutability of data enables those who reuse those records in secondary research contexts to ignore the social and situated circumstances under which the data came into being, thereby preserving the illusion of objectivity ascribed to any work that relies on them. By rendering data as authoritative statements that are accountable only to the entities that they are made to describe while ignoring the circumstances that situate data as resulting from imperfect decisions and circumstances, data obtain a sense of scientific legitimacy through the virtue of being presented as objective (Daston & Galison, 1992). Archaeological data thus serve not only as descriptions of objects and phenomena of interest, but as evidence that ground analysis, and interpretations and explanations derived thereof, in reality, in accordance with scientific principles.

Moreover, in order to maintain robust chains of inference, which are necessary to validate claims derived through analysis, archaeologists rely on prior knowledge about the predictable properties of materials and behaviours, as informed by verified observations and theories (Wylie, 1989, pp. 15–16). In other words, entities under analytical scrutiny are made to fit within established models of natural and social behaviours (Clarke, 2014; Gardin, 1989; Schiffer, 1988). Moreover, these models are built into archaeological recording strategies in that archaeological objects are distinguished as discrete entities and are categorized based on the kinds of analyses that may be performed on them (Carver, 2010, p. 36; Holdaway et al., 2019). Archaeological workflows, particularly those that rely on digital mechanisms, establish disciplined ways of working and channel information along pre-formulated pathways in service of these desired analytical approaches.

This is facilitated by increased investment in and development of information infrastructures for curating, documenting, and sharing data openly via the web (Arbuckle et al., 2014; Kintigh et al., 2014; Kintigh et al., 2015, pp. 4–5). Archaeological data services, which provide archival services to ensure that the information outputs derived from archaeological research are preserved and made accessible for extended use, have thus become prominent stakeholders in the development of digital archaeology (Richards et al., 2021). The notion of “legacy data,” or data that are made available after a project is complete, has emerged to reinforce the sense of finality associated with depositing data in an archive (McManamon et al., 2017; Quinn & Fivenson, 2020). Once deposited in a digital repository, which serves as stable archives or natural resting places for data, data are considered to be final and locked into the “official” archaeological record (Cooper & Green, 2016; Costa, 2013; McKeague et al., 2020). These data are then made available for reuse or analysis designed to address secondary research questions not considered in their original contexts of creation (Kansa, 2012; Richards et al., 2021; Wright & Richards, 2018). Archaeological data services thus operate on two primary fronts: (1) by engaging with archaeological projects to facilitate data deposition in their archives, and (2) by making the materials they host amenable to be worked with in contexts of reuse, particularly in service of digital archaeology research methods (Moody et al., 2021). While their intent is to bridge an existing gap between distinct work environments, archaeological data services also perpetuate certain assumptions regarding the divisions between data collection and data analysis, namely regarding what constitutes a complete and stable dataset and what is needed to perform analysis (Kansa et al., 2014). As such, archaeological data services effectively reify the boundary between these domains.

Moreover, archaeological data services do not adequately reflect or facilitate recursive, reflexive, and iterative aspects of archaeological practices and workflows, in which meanings are continually ascribed, reaffirmed, transformed, or challenged. In fact, data are messy, incomplete, and fail to capture the true essence of the material they are said to document. Moreover, mistakes happen, people reinterpret findings that have already been accounted for, and feedback prompts informal references to previous work that does not always make it to shared spreadsheets (Voss, 2012). Data publishing platforms do not adequately consider how data and the methods of acquiring them change and offer no reliable mechanisms for correcting, critiquing, or otherwise editing published datasets (Bevan, 2015). Accounting for these features of archaeological research would complicate the often promoted benefits of the data publishing model, namely that it supports the validation of truth claims presented as data and that the technical acts of preserving the digital files that contain data are crucial for ensuring their authenticity, notwithstanding the quality of their contents.

Additionally, archaeologists who both produce and reuse data recognize that there is usually more to the story than what is captured in these formal documents and actively seek ways to provide and seek out greater context. Archaeologists depositing their data in digital archives often exhibit a sense of apprehension deriving from a professional fear that data will be used to perform analyses that the creators have not yet published, which may be dealt with by waiting to archive data only after all of its analytical value has been extracted (Strupler & Wilkinson, 2017, pp. 294–295). Another source of anxiety is a concern that the data will be used in a way that the creators consider to be discordant with their intentions; there is no guarantee that secondary analysts will read or properly understand any documentation that accompanies a dataset, and a dataset’s creators may be apprehensive about passively contributing to research with which they take issue (Fredheim, 2020; Opitz et al., 2021). Archaeologists also recognize that the documentation mandated by archival policies may be of limited value or fail to capture the genuine meanings of their work (Huvila, 2016; McManus, 2012); much of the crucial context that informs readers about how archaeological data were created is in fact informally documented and scattered throughout field reports (Huvila, 2021; Huvila et al., 2022a). On the other side of the archive, data re-users often express a desire for information that would only be readily available to those who created them and seek more contextual information that would not necessarily be written and formally documented (Atici et al., 2013, pp. 676–677; Chapman & Wylie, 2016, p. 213; Faniel et al., 2013; Kansa & Whitcher Kansa, 2013, pp. 90–91). Edwards et al. (2011) observed similar phenomena in non-archaeological research contexts, whereby informal conversations about data were necessary supplements to make data useful. Edwards et al. (2011, p. 684) likened metadata to precise parts in a Swiss watch that must be painstakingly polished and engineered to reduce their coefficients of friction, whereby informal means of communication serve as lubrication that overcome friction by filling the unavoidable coarse gaps within a heavy machine “running fast and hot.”

All of this suggests that both producers and re-users of archaeological data are not satisfied with the new kind of collaborative commitment that emerges from this novel arrangement. In response, archaeologists seek ways to break down the barrier between data creation and reuse, either by performing all data analysis prior to engaging with the archive at all or by establishing informal channels to communicate around the system (Faniel et al., 2013, p. 299; Huggett et al., 2018, pp. 98–99). This contributes to what Huggett (2022a, pp. 274–278), Lucas (2019, pp. 55–57) and Wylie (2017) call a sense of “epistemic anxiety,” whereby archaeologists simultaneously consider their data to be both objective and decisive, as well as subjective and situated, depending on the contexts in which they are addressed or applied. This sense of anxiety reflects archaeologists’ present inability to make sense of data’s shifting roles in various aspects of archaeological work, for instance, from contexts of data collection and capture to contexts of analysis.

2.2 Toward a More Discursive Notion of Data

Although archaeologists now commonly acknowledge the theory-ladenness and subjectivity of their data, there is also practical value in maintaining an image of data as stable and decisive expressions of reality, which encode real phenomena in ways that simplify them and make them easier to transmit, manipulate, and serve as the evidential basis for analysis (Batist et al., 2021, p. 1740; Huggett, 2017). For instance, in their critique of formal representations of archaeological objects and phenomena, Hacıgüzeller et al. (2021, pp. 1710–1712) highlighted the misconception that more formally structured data are more objective and neutral representations than narrative or situated accounts and that formal data more readily lend themselves to analytical protocols that are commonly framed as being more rigorous and scientifically sound. Huggett (2022a, pp. 276–278) suggested that this is facilitated by digital tools, interfaces, and workflows, which apply a “distancing effect” by back-loading the apparatus and motivations of data capture to standardized and automated systems; this fosters a sense that data are stable as they emerge from archaeological contexts by side-stepping acts of decision-making at the moment of the archaeological encounter. This contributes to the aforementioned notion of “epistemic anxiety,” which Huggett (2022a, pp. 274–278), Lucas (2019, pp. 55–57) and Wylie (2017) characterize as a tension between the warrant to present data as objective entities while being fully aware of this position’s limits.

A pragmatic vision of data attempts to resolve this tension by considering data to be documentary records that enable research to be extended across time and place and to be carried out in a collaborative manner. In other words, data – understood to be the media upon which observations are inscribed – enable direct experiences with objects and phenomena of interest to be shared and acted upon in alternative research contexts. This perspective takes to heart the fact that archaeologists rely on physical and informational infrastructures and establish organizational practices to normalize the information that they produce and to enable their records to be accessed, understood, and put to practical use. Archaeological data are therefore understood as discursive devices that enable actors to apply various methodologies and theoretical outlooks to converge on entities of mutual concern and that help stabilize and legitimize archaeological knowledge production. This view is well-articulated by Lucas (2001, 2012, 2019), who characterizes archaeology as a materializing process whereby objects of interest are transcribed as information objects, with the aim of constructing comprehensive archives to be accessed by stakeholders with varied interests and who seek different kinds of values from them.

Similarly, Dallas (2015) defined a notion of archaeological curation to describe the simultaneous acts of interpretation and re-presentation that are inherent in all archaeological practices, which occur continuously across research contexts and which rely upon mediating devices to enable collaboration and communication. Dallas (2015) asserted that engaging with any archaeological documentary record necessarily involves actors relating their perspectives to those held by others and squaring their own needs and expectations with the motives, methods, norms, procedures, and tools adopted in other actors’ engagements with objects or phenomena of mutual concern. In other words, archaeologists continually produce and reproduce meanings through a series of discursive negotiations, which occur as they re-interpret and re-present archaeological objects and phenomena in accordance with renewed sets of affordances and limitations pertaining to each encounter.

Thinking of archaeological research as a continuum of distributed practices draws out a greater appreciation for the ecologies of knowledge production involved in the creation and curation of archaeological data. This is reflected in work that documents archaeological practices in a sociotechnical manner, which frames the construction of archaeological knowledge in relation to the social structures and value regimes in which archaeologists are situated and which consider science as active cultural practice rather than as rational and responsive decision making (Caraher, 2022; cf. Edgeworth, 2003; Huvila, 2018). These critical examinations of archaeological research practice are reminiscent of work performed in Science and Technology Studies and Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, particularly studies of distributed action that relate epistemic activities as part of situated experiences involving an array of non-human actors and information objects (Knorr Cetina, 1999; Latour & Woolgar, 1986; cf. Suchman, 2007).

This way of thinking about research practice has led to greater attention to how archaeologists produce, maintain, and use data. Previously, working with data has been presented as an entirely new challenge that the field must face, and the epistemic issues surrounding the implementation of new technologies that they wield have been swept under the rug in favour of practical and application-oriented work. More recently, digital archaeology has begun to recognize these issues as it has matured and has rapidly transformed itself from a field that deals in the novelty of new technologies into one that recognizes and highlights the disjunctures and discontinuities inherent in digital transformations (Graham, 2019; cf. Huggett, 2015; Morgan, 2022; Ward, 2023). This recent wave of critical work focuses on the substrates within which archaeological practices are situated and upon which they depend. Rather than thinking about the nature of reality and our ability to know it, this discourse is now largely concerned with how archaeologists pragmatically recognize and reify archaeological phenomena as constrained by certain inherent qualities or tendencies. Critique often centres on infrastructural or sociotechnical issues or the ways in which individual outlooks, instances, or efforts are mediated, managed, or generalized across, among, or between domains. In practice, this culminates in the critical evaluation of archaeological workflows that support the construction and transmission of data.

These concerns are also sometimes expressed using relatively unconventional forms of scholarly communication, such as blogs and social media. Many archaeologists who regularly apply digital methods in their work use these less formal venues to convey aspects of their research that they would not otherwise present, such as recollections of the difficulties they faced or the glitches that they encountered as they progressed along their digital workflows (Graham, 2019, pp. 84–85). Moreover, they openly invite other scholars and laypeople alike to engage with and co-construct ongoing projects through digital methods of communication and collaboration. Digital archaeologists post informal reflections on blogs and share pointers using social media, which rarely result in a formal or stable end product (Caraher & Reinhard, 2015; Perry et al., 2015; Richardson, 2015). This is driven by a desire to help others do similar things and gain similar value from their own work. There is a recognition that the technological systems that support this kind of work are hard to manage, so people share their resolutions and engage in dialogues that may also serve to document their processes. These personalized and situated accounts of research practice recall the decisions to produce some kind of information output in ways that are comprehensible to other archaeologists who deal with similar challenges. This informal way of documenting archaeological reasoning enables researchers to account for the winding, meandering, or nuanced ways in which data were produced, including failures, dead-ends, and loose strings that rarely come to light.

These informal media are thus means of expressing the awkward tensions between the institutional demands of archaeological research and the reality of actually doing it. The more ephemeral and conversational tone of blogging and posting, of talking with collaborators either in person or through global telecommunications networks, or of chatting in a pub between conference sessions, facilitates more honest expression of what’s on people’s minds between drafts. It is here, in the gaps between formal documents, that the situational reality of archaeological practices, including numerous forms of data work, becomes apparent, and where communal involvement in an archaeological epistemic culture enables members to communicate the instability pertaining to the media on which they rely.

In their pragmatist vision of archaeological reasoning, Chapman and Wylie (2016, p. 207) imagine archaeologists coming together to construct a tangled structure,

bring[ing] to bear as many different types of expertise as are needed to appraise the security of each line of evidence on its own terms, as well as to assess the causal independence of the processes that generated the anchoring traces and the conceptual independence of the background knowledge and analytic methods that warrant their interpretation as evidence.

In other words, robust knowledge structures weave together multiple strands of evidence derived through collaborative cooperation, while devising a strategic plan foregrounds the strengths and limitations of various approaches and their suitability within the research context. Organizing work around communally held goals in such a manner is a crucial aspect of archaeological project management (Carver, 2010, pp. 335–336; Strauss, 1988, p. 165), and we can thus define archaeological projects as communities comprised of actors with common commitments to particular research agendas. Worries about misunderstanding how these actors created a dataset, or about whether someone might misuse a published dataset, are therefore expressions of concern regarding the possibility of performing analysis in secondary research contexts that truly complement the project’s original vision.

These recent critical reflections on digital archaeology highlight a need to consider the epistemic frameworks and practical workflows through which we recreate, organize, process, and use data (Dallas, 2015, pp. 192–193; Hacıgüzeller et al., 2021, pp. 1725–1726; Huggett, 2012, p. 212; 2022a, p. 289). In the context of thinking about archaeological data as communicative media, this must involve considering how collaborating stakeholders construct them through a pragmatic, collective effort to draw out meaningful and authoritative knowledge about the past. This was the attitude I held as I conducted empirical research to better understand archaeological data work and the sociotechnical systems that support it at three archaeological projects, which I will present throughout the rest of this article.

3.1 Approach

This study is informed by a set of theoretical and methodological frameworks formed within a more interdisciplinary “science studies” tradition, which contributes to a more sociological outlook on archaeology as cultural practice (cf. Pickering, 1992). In practical terms, I documented the social and collaborative experiences involved in various research practices, which ultimately bind the many ways in which archaeologists do archaeology. I specifically focused on the information commons, comprising both formal documents and mutually held situated experiences that contribute to the development of shared understanding among archaeologists. This involved closely examining the ways in which researchers rely on physical and conceptual apparatus to capture, store, maintain, and transmit information about the objects that captivate their interests.

Previous work examining the apparatus of archaeological knowledge production relies heavily on actor-network theory (ANT) or similar approaches that highlight the agency and impacts of tools on research practice. These draw attention to how non-human objects not only frame how human beings inhabit the world, but “push back” upon human actions with significant effects (Latour, 1992). In the context of early studies of scientific research, ANT was used to understand the physical and communicative mechanisms – made up of non-human agents and information objects – upon which scientists rely to capture, document, and ascribe meaning to particular facets of the world (cf. Latour & Woolgar, 1986). ANT posits that scientists can only identify, characterize, and understand objects of interest by co-creating their conceptions of reality alongside non-human agents.

However, since its inception 45 years ago, ANT has inspired a myriad of additional approaches. I primarily draw from the work of Knorr Cetina (1999), who offers a more humanistic perspective by highlighting how every action that someone takes in the production of knowledge is underpinned by a desire to fill a gap in knowledge or to square away any irregularities that disrupt ordered accounts of the world. Knorr Cetina’s work builds upon Latour and Woolgar’s (1986) ethnography of laboratory settings with interviews of lab technicians concerning their thought processes while they worked. Specifically, Knorr Cetina (2001) emphasizes how scientists alter the material assemblage of the system on the basis of their understanding of what has or has not worked before, their suppositions concerning ways various actors might interact, and reiteration of their goals. Knorr Cetina therefore prioritizes human agency over the agency of non-human entities, which Latour and Woolgar, on the other hand, place on equal footing.

Knorr Cetina’s work reveals how ANT does not adequately account for the circumstances through which the structures that support science come into being, nor the intentionality of human agents who assemble material apparatus to meet their goals (cf. Whittle et al., 2009). She refocuses attention on discursive aspects of knowledge production by considering expressions of potentiality, certainty, and desire elicited by scientists as subjects acting with intent. This perspective, which emphasizes the perspectival and pragmatic aspects of scientific processes, is closely aligned with the social interactionist sociological framework, which originates from the pragmatist school of philosophy initiated by Charles Sanders Peirce, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. Social interactionism posits that people continuously re-create meanings through their shared understanding and interpretations of things (Nungesser, 2021). It therefore traces the construction of symbolic worlds from everyday interactions.

This approach also aligns with the situated cognition methodological framework for examining the improvised, contingent, and embodied experiences of human activity (Haraway, 1988; cf. Suchman, 2007). It prioritizes subjects’ outlooks, which are contextualized by their prior experiences, and enables scholars to trace how people make sense of their environments and work with the physical and conceptual tools available to them to resolve immediate challenges. Situated cognition therefore lends itself to investigating rather fluid, open-ended, and affect-oriented actions and is geared towards understanding how actors draw from their prior experiences to navigate unique situations. It is especially salient in explorations of how people who are learning new skills learn how to work in new and possibly unfamiliar ways and, in this sense, is closely related to Lave and Wenger’s (1991) theory of situated learning (or “communities of practice” approach), which focuses on how individuals acquire professional skills in relation to their social environments. In such situations, situated cognition enables observers to examine how people align their perspectives as work progresses and to understand better how people’s general outlooks may have changed under the guidance of more experienced mentors. In other words, situated cognition enables researchers of scientific practices to account for discursive aspects of work, including perceived relationships, distinctions, or intersections between practices that professional or research communities deem acceptable and unacceptable and the cultural or community-driven aspects of decisions that underlie particular actions.

In taking on this theoretical framework, I frame archaeology as a collective endeavour to derive a coherent understanding of the past, which involves the use of already established knowledge in the validation of newly formed ideas, and which relies on systems designed to carry information obtained with different chains of inference. These systems have both technical and social elements. The technical elements are the means through which information becomes encoded onto information objects so that they may form the basis for further inference. The social elements constitute a series of norms or expectations that facilitate the delegation of roles and responsibilities among agents who contribute their time, effort, and accumulated knowledge to communal goals.

As such, in constructing the arguments of this study and in carrying out the fieldwork that grounds it, I rely upon both realist and constructivist viewpoints. In one sense, I rely on documenting how people actually act, including the longer-term and collaborative implications that their actions may have on other work occurring throughout the continuum of practice. To accomplish this, I identify research activities from the perspective of an outside observer. I also ascribe meanings to things (such as physical or conceptual tools or objects that captivate subjects’ interests) in ways that conform to my own perspective as an investigator of scientific research practices.

On the other hand, a constructionist perspective enables me to consider how individual agents make components of information systems suit their needs to facilitate communication or interoperability among actors who hold different situated perspectives. By listening to participants’ views about the systems with which they engage, including explanations as to why they act in the ways that they do, I am able to trace the assumptions and taken-for-granted behaviours that frame their perspectives. Moreover, these insights are useful for developing a better understanding of how participants identify with particular disciplinary communities and their perception of their roles within broader collective efforts.

Ultimately, this study is about the social order of scientific research, i.e. the frameworks, mindsets, or sets of values that humans adopt to carry out their work in specific ways. Human beings rely upon physical and conceptual apparatus to do this work but, in order to understand how they do science in ways that conform to the epistemic mandates of the scientific enterprise, it is necessary to prioritize attention to human intention, drivers, and pressures. I am emphasizing the agency of human drivers since they are the ones who (a) identify problems that need to be resolved; (b) imagine, project, or predict potential outcomes of various kinds of actions that they may select to resolve the challenges; and (c) learn from prior experiences and change their behaviours accordingly. By highlighting how pragmatic actions are conducted in relation to broader discursive frameworks, I consider scholarly practices in terms of potential, certainty, and desire from the perspectives of practitioners themselves. This is made possible by considering data as discursive media that connects distributed actions experienced by people operating in disparate work environments, as described in Section 2.2.

3.2 Data

I draw from data collected at three archaeological projects, whereby I observed and interviewed archaeologists at work, with an emphasis on documenting how archaeologists contribute their collective efforts to a common data stream. My selection of cases reflects a need to account for a wide range of practices that are relevant to my goal of investigating the tools and practices that mediate archaeological communication and collaboration. My dataset comprises recorded observations, embedded interviews, retrospective interviews, archaeological documentation, and ethnographic and reflexive field notes. I provide more in-depth descriptions of the projects that constitute my cases and of the data in the Supplementary Materials.

In compliance with the ethics protocol filed with the University of Toronto’s Social Sciences, Humanities, and Education Research Ethics Board (Protocol 34526), I kept all participants’ identities confidential to enable them to speak openly about their views while minimizing risk to their professional reputations. Consequently, all names presented here are pseudonyms, and to further reduce the risk of harm, I also assigned pseudonyms to other information that might reveal participants’ personal identities, such as the names and locations of the projects or their participants, and the names of other people, places, or projects that the participants mentioned.

3.3 Methods

I qualitatively analysed recorded observations and interviews and interrogated the roles and affordances of various tools and documents to highlight the collaborative nature of archaeological data work, which archaeologists may struggle to identify or articulate. My analysis involved an abductive qualitative data analysis methodology to articulate theories based on empirical evidence. My approach draws from what Charmaz (2014, pp. 14–15) calls the “constellation of methods” associated with grounded theory that is helpful for making sense of qualitative data, namely coding and memoing.

Coding, which involves defining what data are about in terms that are relevant to the theoretical frameworks that inform my research, entails rendering instances within a text as interpreted abstractions called codes (Charmaz, 2014, p. 43). Codes can exist at various levels of abstraction. For instance, I applied descriptive codes to characterize literal facets of an instance within a text and theoretical codes to represent more interpretive concepts that correspond with aspects of particular theoretical frameworks. I created many of my codes on the fly as “open codes” when prompted by encounters with demonstrative instances in the text. As I created new codes, I situated them within a code system (adapted from Batist et al. (2021)) that provided me with a rough taxonomic structure to help organize my work and to enable me to more effectively query the data. Coding in this manner involved synthesis of concepts that speak to my understanding of the phenomena of interest while forcing me to remain receptive to limits imposed by what is actually contained in the text. In other words, coding involved applying a precise language to segments of video, audio, and text that served to bridge the gap between the archaeological practices I observed and the theoretical frameworks I applied to explore them as epistemic activities and interfaces (cf. Charmaz, 2014; Saldaña, 2011, pp. 95–98).

Memoing entails more open-ended exploration and reflection upon latent ideas in order to crystallize them into new avenues to pursue (Charmaz, 2014, p. 72). Constructing memos is a relatively flexible way of engaging with data and serves as fertile ground for honing new ideas. Memoing is especially crucial while articulating sensitizing concepts, which Charmaz (2003, p. 259) refers to as the “points of departure from which to study the data.” Memoing allowed me to take initial notions that lacked specification of well-defined attributes and gradually refine them into more cohesive, definitive concepts (Blumer, 1954, p. 7; Bowen, 2006). Exploring the main features, relationships, or arrangements that underlie a superficial view of a sensitizing concept through memoing helped me to identify what kinds of things I needed to locate in the data in order to gain a full understanding of the phenomena of interest. Memoing was also very important in the process of drawing out more coherent meaning from coded data (cf. Charmaz, 2014, pp. 181, 290–293). By creating memos pertaining to the intersections of various codes and drawing comparisons across similarly coded instances, I was able to form more robust and generalizable arguments about the phenomena of interest and relate them to alternative perspectives expressed by others.

Throughout my analysis, I followed the approach that Maryl et al. (2020, para. 30) and Nicolini (2009) advocate, who suggest “zooming in to a granular study of particular research activities and operations and zooming out to considering broader sociotechnical and cultural factors.” This involved “magnifying or blowing up the details of practice, switching theoretical lenses, and selective re-positioning so that certain aspects are fore-grounded and others are temporarily sent to the background” (Nicolini, 2009, p. 1412). This approach was useful for me because archaeological projects all start from different positions but share common practices and tendencies that vary according to contextual circumstances. Thus, I was able to tactfully switch between those lenses to understand the interplay between circumstances and practical implementations, which vary across cases and have their own histories, memberships, sets of tools, methods, and social or political circumstances.

4.1 Data Collection

The most acute and visible mode of information work within archaeological projects consists of acts of recording: filling in recording sheets and writing notes in a field journal. Here, I will describe my observations of these recording practices and how these practices were situated within the apparatus of archaeological knowledge production.

4.1.1 Recording Sheets

A recording sheet is a sheet of paper, or a digital facsimile thereof, that contains a series of empty fields that responsible supervisors are to fill in. Recording sheets comprise multiple sections that prompt the user to provide different kinds of information. These sections are not necessarily bounded in a spatially cohesive way but generally correspond with different means of engaging with and recording archaeological entities.

In my analysis of the context recorded sheet used by Case A, I identified five main sections (Figure 1). First, a section is dedicated to storing indexical information that identifies the locus, or excavation unit, to which the sheet pertains (i.e. the unique identifier for context, trench, survey unit, or feature, as well as the date of fieldwork). This section also identifies the people who were responsible for identifying, articulating, and recording the locus and its attributes. Second, throughout the document, and clustered into subsections corresponding with different kinds of materials, the recording sheet prompts users to provide structured information according to a controlled vocabulary, as documented in the fieldwork manual or on the recording sheets themselves. Fields prompt users to record the things they found, the depth of the trench in various locations, the properties of the soil, and the equipment they used for excavation. The third section prompts users to describe the excavation unit in their own words. This allows them to highlight relationships among entities within the locus and among loci ([B1]). The fourth section prompts users to relate the record with other media pertaining to the same archaeological entity (such as photographs or illustrations) and documents corresponding to other related archaeological features. Finally, the fifth section contains a blank grid and a blank Harris-matrix chart where users may draw and identify the locus, surrounding loci, and any significant aspects in a visual or schematic form ([B1]).

Figure 1

Breakdown of an archaeological recording sheet, highlighting sections dedicated to indexical information, prompted information, descriptive information, associations with other media and entities, and visual and schematic representations.

The fieldworkers I spoke with perceived recording sheets as formal documents that are meant to contain official or authoritative accounts of each locus and its material properties ([A1], [A2]). Consequently, new fieldworkers often felt a need to ask questions about how they should fill out these forms to meet the expectations of the project ([A3], [A4]). Moreover, they typically considered filling in recording sheets to be the purview of trench supervisors, while assistants rarely had the opportunity to do any of this work. If they did, its intent is to serve as an opportunity for the assistants to learn how to become competent as a trench supervisor ([A5], [A6], [A7], [A8]). Filling the forms therefore represents a bureaucratic obligation that someone in a particular position carries out and bears responsibility for their accuracy and completeness ([A9]).

While recording sheets were considered official records, they were sometimes also viewed as cumbersome obstacles that distract from ongoing work or that fail to capture what was really occurring in the trench. For instance, Theo, a seasoned fieldworker at Case A who eventually became field director, was somewhat dismissive of the recording sheets and somewhat resentful of the demands that they impose. He believed that context sheets force him to write his observations in unnatural ways, forcing naturally fuzzy information into strict and arbitrary forms ([A1], [A10]). According to Theo, over-complicated recording sheets have “like a fuck ton of tick boxes, or just sort of, like all of the options in the world” ([A11]). The problem was not rooted in the set choices available; it was a reluctance to be forced to use terms that he did not consider to be valuable representations of what was supposed to be represented. For Theo, recording sheets are tools that warp reality into an overcomplicated beast that largely serves those who work in abstractions of reality (i.e. database managers and bureaucrats). Other trench supervisors, on the other hand, simply felt resigned to work using the system given to them and did little to push the boundaries that the recording sheet imposes ([A3], [A12]).

4.1.2 Field Journals

Archaeologists often compared recording sheets with field journals, the other prominent recording medium in fieldwork ([A13], [B2]). Field journal tools in the form of bound notebooks, where trench supervisors noted all work occurring in a certain trench or on a particular endeavour ([A14], [B1]). However, their use was not necessarily restricted to fieldwork. For instance, journals were sometimes used to track work pertaining to lithics analysis, ethnobotany, database maintenance, etc., but their use in these contexts was rarely mandated by the project and was largely considered part of a personal knowledge management strategy that individual specialists implemented while working of their own accord ([A15], [A2]).

According to Theo, field journals record a “stream of consciousness” and provide a more genuine account of what occurred in the field ([A13], [A14], [A16]); they enable a reader “to understand what the excavator was thinking … whilst they were excavating” ([A14], [B2], [B3]). In other words, they serve as mnemonic devices that preserve memories of the reasoning behind decisions that excavators made, but which they may forget during the flurry of activities that they must perform or that may fade from institutional or collective memory as fieldworkers move on to other projects or otherwise become inaccessible ([A13], [A14], [A17], [A18], [B2], [B3]).

While Theo claimed that “in the journal you can just write the fuck you want, pretty much,” ([A1]) there are professional expectations that guide what information supervisors should record in field journals and how they should structure that information ([A19]). As with recording sheets, the field journals I examined comprised a few distinct sections (Figure 2). First, they contain indexical information that identifies the endeavour (i.e. the trench or specialty) to which the journal pertains, as well as information about who was responsible for leading or carrying out the work. This typically occurs on the cover or first page. Then, the journal entries themselves follow. These are typically recorded on a day-by-day basis rather than ordered by unit or locus. Each entry may contain its own indexical information, such as the date, a list of people involved in the work, unique identifiers of contexts being worked on, etc. Entries also typically mention the conditions or circumstances under which work is occurring, such as the weather, remarks about the crew’s general attitude and morale, or any disruptions that may have occurred that day (Figure 2a and b). They may also list the goals set out for each day of work, relating entries to each other and leading to the formation of quasi-narratives about work progress. The main content of journal entries consists of a log of decisions that the supervisor made and instructions to and carried out by assistants. They also include fleeting interpretations of phenomena being uncovered, revealing why and how certain decisions were made during the work process. Journal entries also commonly use colloquial language and refer to entities they recover in a very casual way. For instance, the journal entry depicted in Figure 2a refers to areas of the trench as the “sand pit of doom” and “bouldery hell.”

Figure 2

Breakdown of archaeological field journals. (a)–(c) depict the combined use of prose, rough sketches, and diagrams to describe the trench; note the references to context numbers in the margins of (c), which relate the prose to what is represented visually; (d) depicts a hand-drawn table at the end of the notebook constituting a photo log; note the used tape in (b) and (d) to label certain sections and make them easier to access; the page depicted in (c) was added to the notebook using glue, and the corners must be held down using materials available on hand in order to fully view its contents.

The field journals I examined are crafty, multi-media documents. They often contain sketches or schematic visualizations of the trench, of the landscape, of relevant features, or of mental models scattered throughout the notebook (Figure 2a–c). Sketches are without scale, and entities are labelled only when the illustrator deems it necessary at the time of drawing. They also sometimes contain hand-drawn tables recording regularly formatted data, such as running lists of photographs taken, contexts opened, special finds and their spatial coordinates, or samples taken (Figure 2d). Because these tables are typically recorded at the end of the notebook and are filled in as new pertinent info comes across their radar, they tend either to run out of space or to reserve too many extra pages. Sometimes, tabs are added to the edges of those pages using a piece of paper reinforced with scotch tape to make them easier to access. Notebooks sometimes have pages ripped out or have pages informally added with tape, glue, or a stapler (Figure 2c).

The journal entries switched between atomic and descriptive characterizations of specific elements within the trench and more speculative associations that draw the trench within a broader understanding of the site as a whole. They exhibit greater flexibility than more formal records in that they often refer to a variety of related entities or observations on the basis of the judgement and experience of the writer. In this way, field journals are discursive media that describe and discuss particular aspects of the project from the situated perspectives of their authors and contextualize and define an object’s significance on the basis of particular experiences with it.

In the cases I observed, field journals were never transcribed or codified into formal representations or generally applied towards analytical tasks; they were used as mnemonic devices to recall and reconstruct the mindset of the person who worked with the recorded material at specific moments in time ([A20], [B2], [B3], [C1]). Liz, a very experienced trench supervisor at Case B, spoke of this while collecting and integrating data from projects in which she has not directly participated: she recalled that “the very first thing I do is read the notebooks, because that’s where you get sort of what their,… their sort of thought process throughout the whole thing, which makes it so much easier to then dive into the actual meticulous data” ([B3]). Reading field journals drew Liz into the project, enabling her to share in the experiences of archaeological discovery, thus establishing a kind of parasocial relationship that afforded her a similar degree of understanding as an actual team participant in the original project might have had.

As such, obtaining access to field journals requires trust. Since journals are internal records that are not published or shared publicly, Liz had to reach out to project directors to request access ([B4]). In some cases, field journals contain information that may be lewd or seem unprofessional, and projects or certain individuals on those projects might not want to reveal such information. For instance, Barry, who is a project manager for Case C and whose duties include liaising with projects that contribute data to a central repository, identified professional tensions that emerged upon the death of the director of a historically impactful archaeological project that had served as a venue where many very well-known archaeologists were trained during their formative years. The late director’s successor mandated making all field journals openly accessible alongside all other records in compliance with still-emerging open-data standards and expectations ([C2]). Many former participants objected to this, and the conflict nearly led to litigation. Barry never stated a specific reason for this contention other than the general sense that publishing these old records broke an unspoken professional courtesy and would violate a trusting relationship between archaeologists and their late mentor.

Trench supervisors sometimes elaborated on their written accounts of archaeological discovery as recorded in field journals during site tours, which were regularly scheduled events whereby the whole team went around the site to learn what was going on in each trench. When the team arrived at a trench, its supervisor described its principal features, typically in a fashion that recalls the work and decisions involved in its exploration ([A21]). Usually, the project director or analysts supplemented this account by making interjections or rebuttals, helping to situate the trench in relation to broader project-wide narratives ([A21]). Site tours were informal and were never recorded, but they conveyed a great deal of information to listeners. Tours used imprecise language and referred to things whose meanings may not have been well understood outside the project team. For instance, members of Case A often referred to the “red shit,” which signifies a layer of red clay that appears throughout the site and which nearly all excavators have had to struggle with ([A21]). Project directors liked to give these tours to visiting scholars, notable guests, and new project participants so that they could get a better understanding of what was going on in the site, rather than being limited to what was published in a paper or report ([A22], [A23]). For instance, Basil, who was the director of Case A, was eager for a visiting consultant to see the site and its materials firsthand since the unique conditions under which the archaeological materials were preserved made them particularly difficult to record in a manner that would convince a reader about their specific characteristics ([A22], [A23]). This echoes previously mentioned statements made by other informants regarding the value of personal and informal modes of communication when trying to relate the character of a site to those who are less familiar with it.

4.2 Digital Transformations

As archaeological data are collected, it is necessary to render them in ways that are more amenable to systematic analysis. This is typically achieved by inputting and organizing data using digital systems such as relational databases, file systems, and digital archives. Here, I will explain the processes through which archaeological information passes through these systems and is affected by them.

4.2.1 Databases

The projects I examined used databases to establish formal structure by integrating information that would otherwise be scattered across various files and whose relationships would be unclear or undefined and therefore unactionable. Databases served to centralize data, relate the outputs generated by complementary streams of investigation, and ensure that the data are structurally consistent ([A24]). The relational database model, which allows for the database to be expanded by adding new tables that refer to indexes in other existing tables, is particularly useful for these purposes since it enables different strands of archaeological analyses performed on the same sets of materials and which generate distinct datasets referring to the same things, to be created on the fly and integrated with existing work on an as-needed basis ([A24], [A25], [B5]). Relational databases are great for drawing associations among entities in the “exploded” archaeological record, which archaeologists investigate using a variety of methods and techniques to produce a multitude of convergent perspectives.

The databases used by the projects I examined were custom-built and used conventions specific to the project. Practical decisions about the database were often made “on the fly” or were derived through trial and error ([A26], [A27], [C3]). Database managers often learned their skills on the job and assembled code that was previously published on various blogs, tutorials, and online forums. Archaeological database managers sometimes struggled to reconcile the information presented by these disparate sources, and the products they eventually cobbled together did not always perform optimally as a result ([A26], [A27]). In this sense, as much as a database is a representation of the project, it is equally a manifestation of the technical skill and archaeological understanding of the person who created it ([C4]). Moreover, many decisions made in the design and implementation of a database were not adequately documented, which made it difficult to comprehend the decisions that went into the development of a particular database and to expand on prior work ([A15]).

I observed that formal data contained within databases, which are characterized by being clean and tidy and are arranged so that they are more conducive to complex retrieval queries and patterned analysis, often originated as relatively messy analog records that are more amenable to fieldwork conditions. Through data-entry and data-cleaning processes, the values written down on paper recording sheets were copied to homologous and homogenous digital tables. However, fieldwork documentation was performed in ways that were responsive to that specific work environment and did not actively account for those transformations that would occur down the line. For instance, fieldworkers used imperfect spelling and grammar, used shorthand representations (e.g. double quotes to indicate the same as previously iterated, informal abbreviations), deviated from controlled vocabularies, and crossed out and re-wrote text (Figure 3). According to Jamie, one of Case A’s database managers, “something as trivial as, like, capitalization, or if someone writes a sentence on something and someone else is reporting it as like initials, you know, it needs to be in the same format so you can actually work with it” [A28]. For automatic data retrieval and comparison to be effective, records must be consistently formatted, and so database managers would edit records while transcribing them into digital formats. The act of transcribing these written values involved significantly transforming or omitting what was originally recorded: words or values that have been crossed out or revised were not copied over; different handwriting or penmanship, which implies different authors or circumstances under which the records were made, were disregarded; and drafted versions of recording sheets, which were entirely re-written, sometimes never made their way to the database manager and were ignored. Moreover, some elements that are difficult to represent as distinct database records, such as sketches that map the spatial distribution of entities or Harris matrix diagrams, were excluded from the database altogether. Acts of transcription thus involved a significant amount of transformation, including information loss.

Figure 3

Instances of imperfect and idiosyncratic recording in fieldwork at Case A. (a) depicts an instance where text is crossed out; (b) depicts the use of shorthand; (c) depicts internal cross-referencing; (d) depicts incongruency between tally marks and their sum; and (e) depicts a draft sketch of the base of a trench.

The act of transcribing recording sheets often produced a sense of anxiety, as this work failed to meet the initial expectation of a smooth and frictionless workflow. Jamie, for instance, recognized that “fieldwork, or field data is never going to be ideal, perfect, clean for data management and data analysis,” but imagined an ideal situation as fieldwork being “a little bit more connected … keeping the fact that you have to work with this stuff later in mind” [A28]. She went on to suggest that “implementing, as early as possible, or you know, as consistently as possible, some kind of standard” would help make data more amenable for analytical purposes [A28]. Similarly, Paul, who maintained the repository where Case C’s data were compiled, considered it his job “to help [project directors] conceive of their research as data … and helping them translate their questions into data, really, and making the data address their questions” [C5]. These statements imply a perceived disconnect between projects’ inability to plan and follow through on systematic data management protocols and their necessity for conducting proper research. Database managers who process data on a systemic level considered data entry a programmatic behaviour; the disconnect between idealized implementations of a project’s data model and the reality of how things were actually recorded in the field forced some degree of acknowledgement that archaeological data are expressions of situated observations, which can be discomforting. Ensuring that field-recording practices are more standardized and consistent is one way of resolving this tension, albeit at the cost of dismissing alternative means of engaging with the archaeological record that does not conform to a narrow set of acceptable recording protocols.

4.2.2 Digital Media Repositories

Archaeological projects also generate lots of non-textual digital media, with varying properties and functional value. For instance, born-digital media, such as digital photographs, data visualizations, or other information objects produced through programmatic means, are cheap to produce and exist in abundance. Transcribed documents, such as spreadsheets containing information copied from physical recording sheets or input from direct observations, are also kept and continually updated. Digital facsimiles of physical media, such as scans of recording sheets and field journals, also serve as redundant and accessible backups of their physical counterparts.

The projects I examined made a concerted effort to centralize their digital repositories. For instance, Case A’s digital repository (Figure 4) took the form of a single portable hard drive, while Case B relied on a unified drive hosted by a commercial cloud storage service (B6], [B7], [B8]). These were separate from but related to the database, while relational databases contain series of formally defined and explicitly related observational records, these repositories contained files whose contents have been input into the database (e.g. spreadsheets that specialists supplied after they completed their analyses), files associated with database records (e.g. photographs recorded in a photo log), or files that supplement or contextualize the information contained in the database (e.g. scans of field journals) ([B7]).

Figure 4

File system maintained by Case A. Spreadsheets, text documents, and photos are situated within a hierarchical folder structure organized according to the kind of work and to the loci to which they pertain.

In effect, the centralized digital media repository assembled the products derived from the distributed efforts of many contributing individuals. Trench supervisors were responsible for maintaining their own trench-specific repositories and used their own laptop computers throughout a field season ([C6]). As they completed work on an excavation unit, supervisors filed their records locally and sent the photos and recording sheets to the database manager, who then integrated these records into the database and the file system ([C7]). Some information, particularly information that pertains to trenches as a whole (i.e. final trench reports and scans of section drawings), were only typically completed towards the end of the season, and the last week of fieldwork involved more intensive coordination between trench supervisors and the database manager to ensure that all records under their purview were complete and accounted for.

Only the final or most up-to-date versions of each trench report or spreadsheet were valued, but older iterations or drafts were maintained in a separate backup directory or held by contributors on their own computers. It was common, but not required or sanctioned, for contributors to maintain copies of their work after submitting them to the project; digital storage is cheap and abundant, and contributors were not charged with actively maintaining these files, so simply having copies on hand involved no substantial investment ([C8]). Files were typically transferred between contributors’ and the database manager using USB thumb drives, which are handy in fieldwork settings that lack stable internet connections. Thumb drives tended to become cluttered with files and were more susceptible to being damaged, lost, or having their files erased or corrupted; they served as temporary media for data transfer and had their contents wiped so that they could be reused the following season.

The projects I engaged with claimed ownership over the central digital repositories they maintain. Full access was limited to project directors and database managers, and anyone who wished to use the information they contain requires permission from directors ([B8]).

5.1 Strategies for Reducing Subjective Representations

In the section above, I documented the attitudes held by various stakeholders regarding these different ways of engaging with archaeological information. Fieldworkers, in particular, recognized that the data they include in recording sheets are only partial. Moreover, fieldworkers were somewhat ambivalent about the future analytical processes through which those records would be picked up and made useful down the line. Database managers, conversely, were extremely concerned with transforming the messy products of fieldwork into tidy information objects that are more amenable to application in computational environments. These divergent attitudes concerning the value of subjective representations may reflect deeper issues regarding the social and professional dynamics of data work and interpretive agency in archaeology (Batist, In review).

Fieldworkers presented fieldnotes and more conversational forms of expression as “streams of consciousness,” as devices used to record the momentary and cumulative experiences that contribute to the formulation of the archaeological record as it emerges. These were deemed as more helpful at communicating the character of archaeological material while accounting for the unique circumstances that frame archaeologists’ encounters with them. These elicitations complement the findings derived from other studies of archaeological field journals. Mickel (2015) made similar observations at the Çatalhöyük Project, whereby fieldnotes draw together observations about archaeological entities of interest and their contributions to the development of legitimate narratives or explanations about them. Moreover, Hacıgüzeller et al. (2021, p. 1726) built on earlier critiques of formal archaeological writing practices, which similarly demonstrated the value of fieldnotes’ relatively unstructured character (cf. Hodder, 1989; Joyce, 2002), arguing for the value of media that “encourage and reflect emotion and embodiment, equivocation and difference, and partiality and closeness.” These reflections correspond with my view that field journals provide the capacity to highlight relationships between objects and phenomena of interest at a very early stage, when these relationships are still emerging at an intuitive level.

In a similar vein, Eddisford and Morgan (2019; Sandoval, 2021; Yarrow, 2008) looked closely at the recording sheets that fieldworkers created and highlighted the personal flair that the unique individuals imprinted while articulating their observations. Eddisford & Morgan (2019) most attentively highlighted the traces of human agency, such as inside jokes or off-topic notes-to-self that sometimes occupy the page margins but are essentially ignored when transcribing these records to more formal documentation. Eddisford and Morgan (2019, p. 251) drew upon these observations to argue that the distribution of interpretive agency among excavators, as facilitated through the use of pro-forma recording sheets, “promotes individual empowerment of diggers, allowing them to contribute to collective knowledge construction on site” and “promoted a more horizontal management structure … [that] encouraged other forms of discourse and community building and camaraderie, such as trench-side discussions and improved health and safety practices.” This squares with observations by Edgeworth (2003, pp. 253–254), who accounted for how records about objects of interest were recorded through conversations among groups of archaeologists, rather than being produced through strictly individual actions. These efforts, which showcase fieldworkers’ hidden voices, include work that examines other media through which fieldworkers creatively express their engagement with archaeological sites (Mickel, 2021; Morgan, 2015, 2019).

This work therefore contributes to a growing body of work highlighting aspects of archaeological recording that exist alongside what will eventually become formally structured data, and which are ultimately swept away, ignored and sanitized out of the “official” archaeological record, thus revealing how these experiences are devalued. Altogether, they reveal a warrant to remove signifiers of the contexts of records’ creation so that data may be published, shared, and re-applied in secondary or functional analytic processes. In other words, records must be made facts, stripped of their subjectivities.

Recording sheets accomplish this by prompting users to record specific sets of observations in a particular way, thereby ensuring the collection of a consistent dataset that contains all the information outlined in pre-defined guidelines and parameters. This facilitates re-assembly of the information that a distributed work-force, operating in many settings, collects with relative ease (Star, 1993). Yarrow (2008) described how the physical properties of recording sheets, including their portability and ability to be combined or shuffled, makes them suitable for working around the complex contingencies of working in relatively unpredictable fieldwork settings. This also facilitated assembling many pages into ordered sets that match the arrangement of entities commonly encountered during fieldwork. The recent advent of “paperless” recording strategies, whereby users enter information directly into a database through digital facsimiles of pro-forma recording sheets, enhances this ability to atomize information and to control information intake with an eye to facilitating digital data processing and analysis (cf. Berggren & Gutehall, 2018; Jackson, 2017; Ross et al., 2015). Moreover, proponents of paperless archaeology are very concerned with ameliorating archaeological workflows, which are ways of directing the specific actions that constitute various activities. This typically involves imposing rule sets on their behaviours to ensure fluid transmission of information along predefined pathways (Berggren et al., 2015; Berggren & Gutehall, 2018; Caraher, 2022). However, these systems lack the material character that enables fieldwork experiences to be expressed. For instance, the mud stains and tattered corners, which ensure that recording sheets and drawings remain viscerally grounded to the site (Bateman, 2006; cf. Yarrow, 2008) are set aside in favour of the delayed satisfaction of formulating a sanitized and consistent dataset down the line.

Key to all of this is the dependency on data models that stipulate how observable entities should be recognized and recorded. Computing deals with models, simplifications or approximations of reality, not reality itself, and recording sheets are one of the primary means for representing reality according to a project’s model of the world (Banning, 2020, pp. 49–50). These models are more explicitly codified in field manuals and internalized by experienced archaeologists (Banning, 2020, pp. 1–2). Field manuals are usually unpublished internal documents that instruct team members, and fieldworkers in particular, how to identify and record objects of interest in a standardized manner that project leaders deem acceptable. Field manuals document methodological procedures, and are sometimes cited to indicate the protocols that were followed while collecting and analysing data. However, according to Huvila et al. (2022b; Huvila et al., 2022a), these citations carry subtext and their meanings may vary depending on the contexts in which they are applied. For instance, an archaeological report may refer to a field manual to identify some generally accepted concepts or practices, to highlight how the project worked around or incorporated a challenging situation, or to contrast what actually occurred with some normative procedure. Although manuals are not exact representations of how work actually proceeded, they do provide some indication about how certain information is valued and how projects imagine their data will be made useful. By tracking diachronic changes to a field manual, it may be possible to trace a project’s shifting priorities over time.

Interestingly, the digital recording interfaces of paperless systems circumvent much of the need for meticulously documented data-collection instructions by setting up built-in control mechanisms. For instance, database management systems can be made to ensure that values recorded for particular variables are of a specified data type (e.g. integers, decimal numbers, text), are never left blank, relate to existing records in other tables, exclude certain values that are not anticipated or allowed, or match other custom criteria (Lock, 2003, pp. 91–93). User interfaces built around a database can also force users to choose from a pre-selected list of values to avoid minor inconsistencies in spelling and terminology (Kadar, 2002, p. 78). This offloads much of the decision-making to the tools and grants significantly more agency to the tools’ designers, at the expense of those who work out in the field and those responsible for assembling and cleaning records as datasets. This relates to the tension between proactive data-management strategies and improvised data-collection practices, which in effect, represent a conflict between managerial and pragmatic impulses (Castelle, 2013; cf. Suchman, 1983).

5.2 What Does Digital Archaeology Really Need?

My conversations with database managers and data curators further revealed the disjuncture between formal and informal data. These people perceived their roles as being to help enhance the functional value of a project’s data, by which they basically exclusively refer to the formal meaning: as records that define formal relationships among archaeological entities and their observable features, which are collated in a consistent manner, as motivated by a need, desire or warrant to render them comparable, typically through functional means of analysis. This perspective is especially salient in the still-emerging field of digital archaeology, which imagines data work as primarily operating within digital research environments, and as mediated by spreadsheets, data frames, text editors, shell interfaces, and other systems commonly used by and associated with software development.

Moreover, the hacker aesthetic, combined with the increased opportunities that participation in modern technoscience affords – which in turn draws from myths surrounding Silicon Valley entrepreneurship – serves to fetishize the digital apparatus (Huggett, 2004). Findings produced through formal means of analysis and that draw exclusively from formal representations are commonly held up as more rigorous and scientifically sound, relative to work more explicitly situated around professional or circumstantial experiences that render them more subjective. They are also seen as synthetic in that they apply rigid control mechanisms that make data conform to analytical workflows (Batist et al., 2021; Hacıgüzeller et al., 2021). As was previously discussed, data thus conceived are typically manifested in tabular form, are decisive and concrete in their representation of discrete entities and their characteristics, and are bounded by the methods used to produce them (Hacıgüzeller et al., 2021). Moreover, they are ambiguously considered as both the products of disciplined analysis and the potential sources upon which similarly functional and predictable analytical processes may be applied (Huggett, 2022a, pp. 274–276).

We see the opposite of this in the general treatment of field journals, which describe gradual acts of discovery whereby the trench and its constituent excavation units gain significance in relation to the project’s overall aims. As I observed, these less formal ways of representing the archaeological site and the findings made there are either not recorded at all or are not reduced to components that are amenable to integration in a formal database (see also Hacıgüzeller et al., 2021). They occupy an entirely separate data stream than formal records, yet have value as interpersonal and richly contextualized accounts of a project’s findings that would be impossible to present adequately through formal means alone.

This relates to archaeologists’ inability to adequately describe their data and the circumstances that contributed to their distinct character. More specifically, archaeologists struggle to describe or document how their plans differ from their actual actions (Opitz et al., 2021). Archaeologists who access published data want to know more about how the work was actually carried out in the contexts of their creation, but it is unclear how that information should be collected and presented (Atici et al., 2013, pp. 676–677; Faniel et al., 2013, pp. 299–301; Huggett, 2018, pp. 98–99). Formal records are lossy and ignore a lot of information that would otherwise be passed along in a social encounter; they involve simplification, whereby individual experiences are flattened and made into a series of symbols that can be more effectively transmitted over transactional media (Hacıgüzeller et al., 2021, pp. 1722–1724). On the other hand, less formal means of communication encourage dialogue and enable people to share information that they would not feel comfortable putting into writing. Further work is therefore required to achieve an effective balance between these different modes of communication.