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Critical data and metadata must be captured or created in the field, or shortly thereafter, to avoid loss. For the past 10 years, the Field Acquired Information Management Systems (FAIMS) project has developed and operated a customisable field data capture platform. Over time, we built features and approaches that incorporated the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) principles into born-digital datasets created during fieldwork. This paper synthesises our experience helping more than 40 projects adapt the FAIMS platform to nearly 70 research workflows in archaeology and other fieldwork domains. We review what elements of the FAIR Data Principles FAIMS was able to build into our software, how users received these capabilities, and what sociotechnical challenges impeded creation of FAIRer field data. Based on our experience, we argue that field data capture software can facilitate the production of FAIRer data, making those data much more Findable and Reusable, and somewhat more Accessible and Interoperable. Any such improvements, however, depend upon (1) making FAIR-data features an integral part of field data collection systems, minimising the burden imposed on researchers, and (2) researchers’ willingness to spend time and resources implementing FAIR Data Principles that do not provide immediate benefits to their research.

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

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.

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 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.

The Thracian Plain in the SE Balkans was one of the main corridors through which Neolithic agriculture spread into continental Europe. Previous studies have invoked rapid sea-level and climatic changes to explain the timing of agricultural expansion. We present a new record of vegetation, fire and lacustrine sedimentation from Bulgarian Thrace to examine environmental change in this region since the Last Glacial Maximum. Our record indicates the persistence of cold steppe vegetation from ∼37,500 to 17,900 cal. a BP, semidesert vegetation from ∼17,900 to 10,300 cal. a BP, forest-steppe vegetation from ∼10,300 to 8900 cal. a BP, and mixed oak woods from ∼8900 to 4000 cal. a BP, followed by widespread deforestation, burning and grazing. Early-Holocene forest expansion in Bulgarian Thrace closely followed changes in the Black Sea's regional moisture balance and appears to have been influenced by solar-forced changes in seasonality. We suggest that climatic aridity and/or enhanced seasonality – lasting until at least ∼8900 cal. a BP – could have delayed the spread of early agriculture from the Aegean coast into the continental lowlands of the Balkans and thence into the rest of Europe.

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.

Higher education in Australia is currently in a state of flux, with the Federal Government’s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency commencing operations in January 2012. The ‘After Standards Project’ has been working with Australian university history departments and the Australian Historical Association, educating and empowering the discipline to act as a united community and assert ownership of a standards process. This article provides a stocktake of the achievements and challenges the After Standards Project has faced in coming to terms with the new environment and resultant new demands around compliance and accountability. It discusses the After Standards Project’s work in terms of both quality assurance and quality improvement, with reference to the establishment of a set of discipline standards and the trial of an accreditation scheme.

This paper discusses the challenges of applying standards to the teaching of tertiary-level history. It gives a critical overview of the emerging standards process in Australia, re-emphasising the importance of disciplinary input in producing a workable and acceptable regulatory framework under the aegis of Australia’s recently-established Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). To this end, it argues for the importance of building capacity within the history discipline both to engage with policy makers in coming months, and to take an active role in defining and implementing national standards for tertiary history. It suggests the potential of grassroots initiatives such as the After Standards project to assist historians in meeting this challenge.

When deployed in combination with ground control, archaeological surface survey, and environmental research, remote sensing based upon high-resolution multispectral satellite imagery allows large areas to be evaluated efficiently by a small team of researchers and contributes to a better understanding of an archaeological landscape. In 2007 and 2008, we analyzed ca. 100 sq km of imagery centered on L'Amastuola, Italy. Combining the evaluation of high-resolution multispectral imagery with concurrent ground control led to the discovery of 29 sites and significant off-site scatters during about four weeks of fieldwork. Our analysis indicates that most of the detected features reflect geological conditions amenable to past human habitation rather than subsurface archaeological remains. Earlier fieldwork by the Murge Tableland Survey (MTS) provided independent definitions for various types of sites and a large sample of sites and off-site scatters in the study area. Comparison of our remote-sensing gu...

In this article, the Federated Archaeological Information Management Systems (FAIMS) project presents its stocktaking activities and software development towards the creation of a comprehensive digital infrastructure for archaeologists. A National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources (NeCTAR)-funded initiative, the FAIMS project aims to develop tools to facilitate the creation, sharing, reuse and dissemination of high-quality digital datasets for research and cultural heritage management. FAIMS has engaged in an extensive stocktaking and liaison programme with archaeologists and related professionals, the results of which have shaped the development plans. Project development is focusing on highly customisable mobile applications for data collection, a web application for data processing, and an online repository for archiving and disseminating data, with provisions for creating semantically and technically compatible datasets embedded throughout. Data exchange using standard formats and approaches ensures that components work well together, and that new, externally developed tools can be added later. Our goal is to create a digital system that respects the current workflow of archaeological practice, improves the availability of compatible archaeological data, and delivers features that archaeologists want to use.