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This article discusses the deployment of mobile data capture software developed by the Field Acquired Information Management Systems project (FAIMS Mobile) to document systematic pedestrian surface survey and legacy feature verification at the Perachora Peninsula Archaeology Project (PPAP), Greece, in 2020. FAIMS Mobile is an open-source platform that generates customized Android applications for data capture during field research. We reused and adapted two existing customizations from the FAIMS library for comprehensive digital recording of two workflows, integrating a collection of structured data, geospatial data, photos, and text. FAIMS Mobile required only modest hardware but supported offline setup, synchronization, and data export, allowing PPAP to deploy it despite unreliable internet access. The system proved successful; it was tailored to our aims and methods, captured consistent and well-described data rapidly, and minimized post-processing. All collected data was available daily for planning, and a comprehensive dataset adhering to Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) data standards was ready for analysis with only a few hours of processing after fieldwork.

Archaeology has an issue with "just-in-time" research, where insufficient attention is paid to articulating a research design before fieldwork begins. Data collection, management, and analysis approaches are under-planned and, often, evolve during fieldwork. While reducing the amount of preparation time for busy researchers, these tendencies reduce the reliability of research by exacerbating the effects of cognitive biases and perverse professional incentives. They cost time later through the accrual of technical debt. Worse, these practices hinder research transparency and scalability by undermining the quality, consistency, and compatibility of data. Archaeologists would benefit from embracing the "preregistration revolution" sweeping other disciplines. By publicly committing to research design and methodology ahead of time, researchers can produce more robust research, generate useful and reusable datasets, and reduce the time spent correcting problems with data. Preregistration can accommodate the diversity of archaeological research, including quantitative and qualitative approaches, hypothesis-testing and hypothesis-generating research paradigms, and place-specific and generalizing aims. It is appropriate regardless of the technical approach to data collection and analysis. More broadly, it encourages a more considered, thoughtful approach to research design. Preregistration templates for the social sciences can be adopted for use by archaeologists.

FAIMS Mobile is a native Android application supported by an Ubuntu server facilitating human-mediated field research across disciplines. It consists of ‘core’ Java and Ruby software providing a platform for data capture, which can be deeply customised using ‘definition packets’ consisting of XML documents (data schema and UI) and Beanshell scripts (automation). Definition packets can also be generated using an XML-based domain-specific language, making customisation easier. FAIMS Mobile includes features allowing rich and efficient data capture tailored to the needs of fieldwork. It also promotes synthetic research and improves transparency and reproducibility through the production of comprehensive datasets that can be mapped to vocabularies or ontologies as they are created. Keywords: Android, Mobile software, Field research, Field science

The Traces in a Lost Landscape: Aboriginal archaeological sites, Dyarubbin/Nepean River Project uses geospatial recording and analysis to recover, integrate, and map data from published and unpublished reports on Aboriginal archaeological sites on Dyarubbin/the Nepean River in New South Wales, Australia. This dataset consists of Australian Aboriginal archaeological locations of interest in the greater Nepean River area in New South Wales, Australia.

This article uses an ordered logistic regression (logit) model to assess the vulnerability of ancient burial mounds to human activity in the Kazanlak Valley, Bulgaria. This model yields probabilities of damage to burial mounds subject to changing conditions, based on the present condition and situation of a large dataset of mounds ( n = 773), as estimated through direct visual assessment. Results for the Kazanlak Valley indicate that changing land use (conversion of pasture to arable land) and depopulation or de-urbanisation (increased distance to the nearest city, town, or village) represent two anthropogenic factors that degrade burial mounds. These factors likely represent threats from ploughing related to annual agriculture, and looting fostered by the decreased scrutiny associated with remoteness. After an initial survey to acquire the requisite data, local cultural heritage personnel can use this approach to predict quickly and continuously how mound vulnerability will respond to changing circumstances, and then direct resources to the most vulnerable monuments. Unlike typical predictive modelling for cultural heritage management, use of a logit regression on a large dataset quantifies the probable impact of changing circumstances on monuments without relying on site location models, prior knowledge of specific hazards, or forecasts of future development. This approach can be applied widely, wherever sufficient observational data are available. Our results also provide a reminder that agriculture is not wholly benign, and that depopulation – not just urban sprawl – can threaten cultural heritage.

This chapter is a summary of the results of two seasons of field survey by the Tundzha Regional Archaeology Project (TRAP), one in the Elhovo study area and the other in the Dodoparon study area of the Yambol province. The survey covered a total of 37 sq km, mostly in intensive and extensive mode. The archaeological residues include 24 surface concentrations, 52 burial mounds, a previously known fortress of Dodoparon, and two previously known prehistoric tells. The chapter focuses on the morphological features and classification of the surface concentrations and burial mounds, as well as preservation and recovery rates. Recovery rates of surface concentrations in the Yambol province seem independent of survey strategy, being consistently similar to the expected rate. While the number of concentrations per sq km in Yambol is lower than in Kazanlak, scatters are larger and higher density. Given the lack of background scatter, concentrations are easy to detect, diminishing the difference between high and low intensity approaches. Yambol's burial mound density of 1.4 mounds per sq km is much lower than in Kazanlak; the mound size distribution, however, corresponds well to the Kazanlak dataset if the Gorno Sahrane necropolis is excluded from the latter.

This paper uses a trial audit of history programs undertaken in 2011-2012 to explore issues surrounding the attainment of Threshold Learning Outcomes (TLOs) in an emerging Australian national standards environment for the discipline of history. The audit sought to ascertain whether an accreditation process managed by the discipline under the auspices of the Australian Historical Association (AHA) could be based on a limited-intervention, “light-touch” approach to assessing attainment of the TLOs. The results of the audit show that successful proof of TLO attainment would only be possible with more active intervention into existing history majors and courses. Assessments across all levels of history teaching would have to be designed, undertaken, and marked using a rubric matched to the TLOs. It proved unrealistic to expect students to demonstrate acquisition of the TLOs from existing teaching and assessment practices. The failure of the “light-touch” audit process indicates that demonstrating student attainment under a national standards regime would require fundamental redevelopment of the curriculum. With standards-based approaches to teaching and learning emerging as international phenomena, this case study resonates beyond Australia and the discipline under investigation.

Desde la presuposición de la pluralidad radical, esta disertación investiga interpretaciones distintas de la economía. El propósito es investigar y explorar el concepto de interpretaciones transracionales de la economía a través de la teoría de las paces múltiples elaborada por Wolfgang Dietrich. Dietrich define cinco familias de paces: energética, moral, moderna, posmoderna, y transracional. La familia transracional es una síntesis dinámica de las cuatro primeras familias. Cada una es una expresión de una ontología y epistemología única que explica cómo la economía se manifiesta en cada familia. El cuerpo de este texto es entonces una vista panorámica de la ontología de la economía a través de la cultura e historia. Seis hilos conductores se comparan en cada familia: tiempo, justicia, relaciones, moneda, medio ambiente, y paz. Las aportaciones provenientes de las cuatro familias de paces se unen para ofrecer postulados de interpretaciones transracionales de la economía., Beginning with the postmodern assumption of radical plurality, this dissertation investigates different interpretations of what can be summed up as economics. The purpose is to investigate and explore the concept of transrational approaches to economics. This is done by using Wolfgang Dietrich’s Theory of the Many Peaces and applying it to economics. Dietrich lays out five families of peaces: energetic, moral, modern, postmodern, and transrational, the final being a dynamic synthesis of the first four. Each peace family has its own unique ontology and epistemology, which is in turn used to explain how economics manifests in each family. The main body of this dissertation is thus an ontological overview of economics in history and culture. Six common threads are compared in each family: time, justice, relationships, currency, environment, and peace. The insights from the four constituent families of peaces are gathered to offer postulates of transrational approaches to economics.