On the Web Autumn 2002

More on News feeds

In my last column I mentioned archaeology news feeds, since when the CBA has launched one at http://www.britarch.ac.uk/newsfeed/index.html. The feed is updated every five minutes with links relating to British and Irish archaeology and can become addictive. They use a wide range of keywords and some of the ‘near-misses’ are fascinating; items relating to football players are pulled in because of the frequent use of the word‘ Neanderthal’.

Wessex Archaeology

I see that Wessex Archaeology has a new website at http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/. It includes the usual information about staff and current projects, including the Amesbury archer, the putative ‘King of Stonehenge’ but most interestingly for me the site uses XHML, not HTML. This is a technology that you will be hearing a lot about in the future. It may be time to make sure your web browser is up to date, to make best use of the new sites.

Browser upgrades

If you are unable or unwilling to go on the Microsoft upgrade route to Internet Explorer 6, try the Mozilla project at http://www.mozilla.org/. This is an open source browser project, which provides the source code that underlies the new Netscape 7 browser (http://www.netscape.com). Mozilla is not just for the Windows operating system.

Broadband and video

Broadband Internet access is now becoming much cheaper and much more common, either via cable or via ADSL. One of the benefits is that Internet access is now fast enough to provide decent quality video to users. The only site I have come across that provides archaeology video is the Archaeology Channel (http://www.archaeologychannel.org/). Most of the material here is American but there is one video on Calleva (Silchester). This is not in full motion video. Ignore the introduction by Adam Hart-Davies, presumably taken from ‘What the Romans Did For Us’, and there is a brief, general introduction to archaeology and the site. There are always complaints about TV dumbing down archaeology programs, and putting video on the web could be a way of reaching a new audience.

Interpreting Stratigraphy

I see that the Interpreting stratigraphy conference is now ten years old, of course it now has its’ own website and a mailing list, which unfortunately a bit quiet at the moment. The site is at http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/strat/index.htm, while the Mailing list can be found at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/INTERPRETING-STRAT.html. You can now download the complete volume of some of the past proceedings in Acrobat format.

Developments at the ADS

The Archaeological Data Service (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/) has seen some changes recently. There is an improved interface to the ADS catalogue making searching easier and the OASIS project has been launched to provide an index to the mass of ‘grey’ archaeological literature.

Archweb