What issues do you face being an archaeologist when comes to collecting and accessing data? Jasper (12)

Dear Jasper,

When archaeologists are writing excavation reports, they make references to many books and articles. In order to place the excavated site in context, they also make references to other sites that were dug in the vicinity and have to look for different site reports.

There are several ways to access this data: here in the UK, we mostly use a service called ADS (Archaeology Data Service), which provides a collection of data including site reports, databases and maps. Sometimes, we also have to go to the County Archives. Those are public institutions that store varying collections and maps (such as Tithe maps, for example, although many of them are now available online).

Now the main problem we encounter as archaeologists is that many site reports are not published and remain as ‘grey literature’. As a result they can be difficult to get a hold of. Most commercial archaeology companies are good at uploading them online but it is not always the case. This also goes for research excavations as some have been going on for years and parts of the collections and archive are sometimes stored privately.

However now that most data is accessible online, it makes it a lot easier to access.

Odile, November 2025