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| West Heslerton, North Yorkshire. (click on image for large illustration circa 80K) |
The results of the excavation of this early Anglo-Saxon settlement, promise to change radically our understanding of early Anglo-Saxon settlement, and in particular the Roman-Anglo-Saxon rural transition. The extensive application of computer technology during the fieldwork resulted in the development of a large and fully integrated computerised archive, which has greatly enhanced the potential for analysis. This archive includes a number of linked datasets which relate contexts, material culture, environmental evidence, digital 3D plans, and photographs in a single integrated structure. The full dataset is managed within a GIS which incorporates functions to facilitate the manipulation of stratigraphic data, artefact distribution, and interactive access to context and finds information. The total record comprises nearly a million records and more than a hundred megabytes of digital 3D plans.
More than twenty specialists are contributing to the analytical programme and it has been necessary to provide access to the core project archive from a number of different locations for the whole project team. This has been developed using Internet standard mark up language (HTML) which allows data to be distributed on CDROM or on the Internet and requires no special training or software other than an Internet browsing package to read the data. This approach provides access, for both the core team and external specialists, to detailed catalogues of all the structures and principle feature groups. Each catalogue entry incorporates a digital plan with simple access to additional information (eg section drawings, context summaries, and object catalogues). The catalogues can be amended or enhanced directly, allowing the incorporation of new information and ideas as they emerge; changes and additions are tracked automatically so that the archive maintains its integrity. Although analysis is only in its first year, it is clear that the flexibility resulting from a digital archive is already having a significant and beneficial impact on the effectiveness of the post-excavation programme.