S22 | Dig Watch: Anglo-Saxon Cemetery: Day One - Spoil Heap Q&A: Pete Spencer

Re the “pub scenes”, why I miss is the hypothesising and debating between specialists covering different periods, what does that wall represent, the null- Saxons lived like X but didn’t know how to do Y, where as the romans knew Y but had no supplies of Z. E cause of the loss of shipbuilding in Ireland, so either version could be right or there is a third one….”. How people lived, constraints at different times and the uncertainty of debate. It feels like because the technology has moved on, everyone keeps their opinions back until “facts “ are in. I prefer to see ideas develop over time and the background history of eras drawn out in real time.

J Brown

Having just watched Day One of the Knights Hospitaller Site Walkabout where once again Pete Spencer's segment stood out as an engaging and insightful glimpse of current archeological practice in action - I had to return to say thank you to Pete Spencer for this Q&A which was the highlight of the rather sparse Anglo Saxon Cemetery footage for me. Finally someone giving us a window onto the archeology and, in this instance, the way big data is impacting archeological practice. This is why I became a Patreon I only wish there was more content like this.

Anne

More data "digging" please. Can you give us a list of the top 10 data points and what information they impart?

Donna Holt

Oops. The learning about hands-on field work was done during discussions in the pub after the official workshop was done for the day. :/

Early in my career during week long workshops where we were learning some new information due to technological advances, including both old and new technologies and techniques. I learned more about the hands-on field work, including problems encountered using the technology and various ways of finding the cause of the problems, various ways of solving or resolving the fixes for those problems. It was wonderful time of my life and career.

Very interesting . Thank you.

Dusty Stone

Good to see cut-off jeans making a re-appearance!

Michael Taylor

There's a back-story! I'm compiling a case for a TT investigation into a possible oppidum (various authorities have commented on its possibility), and I'd like to map out some of the earthworks (which are visible in lidar, on the ground and already scheduled). I should add, that I'm a data scientist and visualiser, although in an entirely different domain (biomedical / scientometric), so broadly transferrable skills, but nothing very helpful :D

Michael Taylor

Pete, i have a question - what applications and data sources would you recommend as a starting point for using open archaeological data? I'm familiar with Lidar, and have downloaded data to view it, but not really found an application I like.

Michael Taylor

As I watched, I could see Pete's chair tilting more and more, and I wondered when it was going to fall over! (I know, I should have been concentrating on the questions!)

Richard Davis

Thanks for answering the pubscene question! Glad to have been of service to enable you to give a small spoiler ;-)

Goijaart van Dijk

Great Q&A and banter 👍 Appreciate all your hard work and your happiness, excitement, and smiles even more.

Hang on, Whittington - does that mean both the TT Knights Hospitallers dig AND Chester Uni / Shared Past's project with the Castle Trust both came from the same e-mail to Stewart?!

Charlotte Edmonds

It's interesting that perhaps archeology has moved closer to mainstream and the public eye which might have led to further profesionalization... Also you probably aren't doing your correlation analysis in a pub.

Jakub Jůzl