by Eljas Oksanen

In the last week of March I had the pleasure to visit the SuALT project on a research mobility programme. Born and (mostly) raised in Helsinki, though now having spent the larger part of my life abroad, the city has a special place in my heart and it is always a pleasure to go back there. Special thanks are owed to Anna Wessman, Suzie Thomas and the University of Helsinki for inviting me and for arranging all the details of the trip so brilliantly.

I am a medieval historian with a keen interest in digital humanities and archaeology, and in the recent years I have worked on a GIS-led research project with the Portable Antiquities Scheme based at the British Museum in London. As PAS, SuALT and other bourgeoning small finds recording schemes in Europe have demonstrated, there is a tremendous amount of potential in digital humanities analysis of metal-detected finds for reappraising our understanding of historical material cultures. With new data beginning to be made available to researchers and members of the public by the new continental schemes, there is also increasingly a demand for its foundational statistical and GIS analysis.

The purpose of my visit was to participate in the conversation on DH research on Finnish metal-detected finds. The week seemed to fly past extraordinarily fast. Suzie and Anna introduced me to the department and we discussed the current work conducted by SuALT. Ville Rohiola at the Finnish Heritage Agency gave me a very generous amount of his time for discussing the various cultural heritage databases and projects that the FHA supports. Professor Eero Hyvönen and his team invited me over to the Semantic Computing Group, Aalto University, and showed me their work on linked-data databases and on the prototype online portal for self-reporting finds. On Wednesday I gave a paper on my own research and experiences with the PAS, which sparked interesting conversations on how various archaeological databases that seemingly serve similar purposes nevertheless enable different research directions. As was noted, databases are themselves cultural artefacts, the character and capacities of which are shaped by design, development and data input priorities particular to their institutional environments.

Photo: Suzie Thomas

Having worked within a British metal-detectorist context it was interesting to see how the histories and cultures of the respective detectorist communities differ, and how this encourages different solutions in heritage management. Finnish metal-detectorists appear to be particularly ready to embrace new recording technologies!

Between meetings and informative conversations I had some time for examining a download of the luettelointitietokanta, which contains records of the metal-detected finds sent to the FHA and taken into their archaeological collection. While this dataset is only a portion of the material recovered over the last half a decade, it was nevertheless possible to start working out broad trends in the finds data. Like in the UK coins are the most numerous object type, followed by copper/copper-alloy dress accessories. On a very large scale the spatial distribution of finds might be interpreted as reflecting demographic patterns (e.g. the weight of the finds lies in the south) but are likely to correlate more directly with active regional detectorist communities (see map).

Map: Eljas Oksanen

A comparison with trends in the PAS data helps to tease out local biases. In relative terms iron objects are very rare in England and Wales (< 1 percent of all finds) but form a substantial minority population of the Finnish finds (16 percent). In the UK the vast majority of metal-detecting takes place on fields where a great deal of scrap iron may be encountered, and detectorists are even known to set their detectors to ignore iron signals. In Finland many finds are made in forests where scrap metal ‘background noise’ may not be such an issue. Perhaps there are therefore differences in detectorist habits that directly influence the composition of recorded material? Conversely there were few reported lead objects among this sample of Finnish finds – a real difference in material culture or another result of different recovery/recording biases? Many more questions remain to be asked.

The week was densely packed with activity and has given me a great deal of food for thought. SuALT is working to established an enhanced context for managing metal-detected finds that incorporates archaeological perspectives, IT solutions and cultural heritage management concerns. From my particular perspective as a digital humanities researcher it is clear that SuALT will empower new ways of examining and understanding the past.

By Pejam Hassanzadeh

Hi all!

It is nice to be here and tell the good news about the SuALT application. Firstly, I want to mention that I am happy to be a part of this project which is also related to my masters thesis at Aalto University. When I heard about the SuALT project for the first time, I became very interested and wanted to be a part of it. Many thanks to all who helped me to take part in this project.

Technology is growing at a rapid rate and changing our lives continuously. Nowadays, most of the services are digitalised, and these digitalised services have great importance in our daily lives. Digitalisation improves efficiency and productivity, and at the same time, it boosts all other processes. SuALT aims to produce a digital platform for reporting and studying archaeological finds. Furthermore, it intends to enable the end users to contribute directly to collections.

We have started designing the prototype of the SuALT application. In this prototype, we have used user-centred design which means that we have focused on the users and their needs. We aim to create a highly usable service for the end users. We have tried to take into account the most critical user needs and created mockups based on them. In this stage, we have followed the following design principles:

• Mobile first
• Clean and fresh
• Communication

We will focus on providing a responsive and mobile friendly service which should work without any problems on all mobile devices.  In this service, we would like to have a clean and fresh design. Clarity and simplicity help to create a better user experience. In addition to these, communicating efficiently the end users is essential for us. We would like to have a balance between readability, legibility, colour and texture.

The SuALT application will have an intelligent form which will help the users to report their finds. In addition to reporting, it educates them by providing continuous feedback and learning materials so that the SuALT application can work as a teaching tool. The main idea here is to teach during the form filling process.

In this form we have followed the following design principles:

• Make it simple
• Reduce cognitive and physical load
• Use conditional logic
• Break into steps
• Provide help and autocomplete
• Teach by filling in

We want to keep the intelligent form as simple as possible. To achieve this we strive to minimise the total number of free text fields which will reduce the interaction cost so that the end user will accomplish more with less effort. Furthermore, the form will provide autocomplete functionality and use ontologies for the core form fields. For example, it will be able to retrieve location coordinates and the current date automatically.

The intelligent form will make it possible to use a device camera so that users can take pictures of the find and surroundings. Guidelines for taking more professional and consistent photographs will be provided. Also, the form will use conditional logic to configure fields to display or hide based on the user’s response to other fields. In addition to these, it will consist of multiple steps and a possibility to save it as a draft during these steps.

We are going to publish the first test version of the SuALT application this year. Stay with us!

By Suzie Thomas

During my research mobility period to the University of Oklahoma, I have been able to learn much about how the archaeologists and anthropologists here work to engage with the wider public. One key area of great interest to my colleagues at OU – especially SuALT Expert Advisory Panel member Prof Bonnie Pitblado – is the impact of artefact hunting and collecting in the region. Through talking to members of the Oklahoma Public Archaeology Network (OKPAN) and through accompanying Prof Pitblado and others on visits to collectors’ homes, I have learned that collecting is a long tradition for many current enthusiasts – who in some cases are perhaps the second or even third generation within their family to collect artefacts.

In the context of Oklahoma, the majority of collected artefacts tend to be lithics, often from Palaeo-Indian cultures such as the Dalton and Clovis typologies. The collectors I have met tend to take very good care of the items in their stewardship, and they have detailed notes and documentation, as well as sometimes engaging anecdotes about their own stories of acquisition, which add to the individual object’s biographies. The scale, and long history of collecting, means that to ignore or discount these private individuals that have amassed material but also knowledge (both of the artefacts and of the landscapes in which they were found), would be a disservice to archaeological research, as is the case with many documented metal-detected finds in Europe. It is also unfair and oftentimes inaccurate to assume that the existence of these collections automatically means a fascination only with the objects’ intrinsic (monetary) value, or that the collectors and searchers of this material are automatically deliberate law-breakers. For this reason, Prof Pitblado and others talk about the notion of Responsible and Responsive stewards.

Responsible stewards are those individuals who are – quite literally – taking on a stewardship role, taking care of cultural material and ensuring that it stays together. One collector that I have come to know has even gone to the lengths of spending his own money to buy collections of older artefact hunters (sometimes active way back in the early 20^th century) in order to ensure that their field notes and collections stay together for future researchers to access. This has been in contrast with the alternative outcome, which would have been that the objects and papers dissipate onto the market through relatives who are less interested in the collection and look simply to sell or otherwise dispose of their inheritances. An active non-professional researcher himself with several published archaeological articles to his name and a history of working alongside professional archaeologists, and with a long term plan to bequest his collections to the Sam Noble Museum in the city of Norman, this person is most certainly a responsible steward of the objects for which he cares.

Some of the lithic artefacts on display at the Sam Noble Museum, Norman, Oklahoma.

Responsive stewards, by contrast, may not yet be at the stage of fully documenting and allowing access to their collections in a way that maximizes their research value, and may even be engaging in irresponsible practices such as removing objects from the ground without due care and find spot recording. However, as Prof Pitblado and others have noted already elsewhere, many if not most people are prepared to change their practices with regard to artefact hunting and collection, once the importance of doing this – such as the greater richness of archaeological knowledge to be gained – is pointed out to them. Another collector that I have met possibly falls into this category. It became apparent that, unfortunately, some objects in their collection were found on land for which permission to remove material would not have been forthcoming (although it is not clear whether this was explained to the collector during their many decades of active searching). Yet at the same time, the collector has kept their finds together, in a situation where many others were also searching on the same land, and likely taking objects away for sale or other forms of dispersal. In addition, this person has for a long time allowed access to their collection to local archaeologists and museum curators, and in recent discussions appears open to digitizing some of their objects so as to allow worldwide access via the web. These people, responding to outreach, communication and education efforts, are hence responsive in their outlook.

Another vitally important aspect of cultural heritage in the USA is that, like Finland, the country is home to indigenous peoples. With some 39 officially recognized Native American Tribes, Oklahoma has one of the largest and most diverse representations of indigenous culture in the USA, with only the states of Alaska and California having more Tribes within their territories. These are essential communities with whom archaeologists and anthropologists must engage, especially as much of the archaeological material discovered in Oklahoma has a direct connection to indigenous cultures represented in the state today. In this regard, Oklahoma has a fascinating and also troubling history, in that – additional to the groups who already lived in the land that now makes up the state of Oklahoma – many more Tribes were displaced to here after white European settlers seized their original habitats. It is not my intention to go into a detailed history in this short blog post, but needless to say that the legacy of this difficult past continues to play out today, and thus involvement with and control over cultural heritage is a particularly important issue for many of the Tribes in the present.

Section of the Chickasaw Cultural Center exhibition in Sulphur, Oklahoma, depicting the difficult migration of the Chickasaw people to Oklahoma from Mississippi in the nineteenth century, along the so-called “Trail of Tears”.

I have had a truly instructive and enriching experience thus far, simply observing and learning about the patient and inclusive approaches that Prof Pitblado, Dr Amy Clark, Dr Debra Green and many others at OU are taking with the communities around them. We are similarly aiming to be inclusive and collaborative in our development of SuALT in Finland, and I have really appreciated seeing how the work is going in Oklahoma. Similarly, in early October I had the opportunity to be a guest speaker for the Oklahoma City Chapter of the Oklahoma Anthropological Society – a state-wide society for interested avocationals – at which I was able to present my research on working with non-professionals in the UK and Finland, and to introduce SuALT. I was happy to receive positive feedback from Society members, who seemed very interested in the work we are doing in Finland.

Although a finds-recording scheme such as SuALT does not currently exist in Oklahoma, and the logistics, resourcing issues and legal complications of rolling out such a scheme across the whole of the USA make it virtually impossible and more than a little bit unlikely, discussions here have nonetheless turned to digital possibilities. There are plans afoot within OKPAN, for example, also working with enthusiastic avocationals with an interest in photogrammetry, in making 3D images and even 3D prints of some cultural objects in the future. Placing large archaeological finds databases online – as we have seen already with such as the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and anticipate seeing with SuALT – can open up new research avenues, and allow access to scholars situated far away from the physical collections. There is also a new group in formation – the Gang of Oklahoman First American Researchers (GOFAR) is in early stages of formation, but is collecting ‘gang’ members from academia, from Native American groups, and from the avocational community.

Although I only am at the end of my research mobility in Oklahoma, I have found this an enriching and rewarding experience. My enthusiasm is renewed and I am keen to look even more closely into meaningful ways of increasing community engagement with SuALT – across increasingly diverse community groups – and I feel certain that I have deepened links and possibilities for collaborative partnership between what is happening in Oklahoma, and what I and the excellent SuALT team are trying to do in Finland.

Sysmän Ihananiemestä löytyi syyskuussa 2017 metallinetsinnässä useita hopeaesineitä. Löytö on nähtävissä lokakuun loppuun asti Kansallismuseon Esihistoria-näyttelyssä.

Sysmän löytö, kasvokuvioinen sormus. / Fyndet från Sysmä, ring med ett ansikte som utsmyckning. / The Sysmä find, ring with face pattern. Kuva / Foto / Photo: Ville Rohiola, Museovirasto / Museiverket / Finnish Heritage Agency

Löytökokonaisuus sisältää 31 hopearahaa, soljen, hopea- ja ristiriipuksen, neljä sormusta sekä hopeaspiraaleja. Kiinnityslenkilliset rahat ja hopeariipus ovat olleet kiinni kaulanauhassa.  Rahoista useat ovat kotimaisia jäljitelmiä, joita ei ole ennen tunnettu. Merkittävin niistä on Bysantin keisarin Mikael V:n (hall. 1041-1042) harvinaiseen kultarahaan pohjautuva jäljitelmä. Rahojen perusteella esineet ovat päätyneet maahan aikaisintaan 1050-luvulla.

Kokonaisuudessa on lisäksi mm. mielenkiintoinen kasvokuvioinen sormus. Kullatun sormuksen kantaan on kuvattu kasvot, joissa on nähtävissä pyöreät ulospäin työntyvät silmät ja sivuille harottavat viikset. Kasvot kuvastavat todennäköisesti uskonnollista hahmoa, skandinaaviseen mytologiaan tai kristinuskoon liittyvää. Vastaavaa sormusta ei tunneta Suomesta aiemmin.

Sysmän löytö, rahat, riipukset ja soljet. / Fyndet från Sysmä, mynt, hängsmycken och spännen. / The Sysmä find, coins, pendants and buckles. Kuva / Foto / Photo: Ville Rohiola, Museovirasto / Museiverket / Finnish Heritage Agency

Sysmän hopealöydöstä on tehty myös dokumentti ”Löytynyt: hopea-aarre”. Ylen KulttuuriCoctailin kuvaamassa dokumentissa esitellään hopealöytöä koskevia tutkimuksia sekä konservointia. Dokumentti on nähtävissä sekä näyttelyssä että Areenassa. Lisätietoa dokumentista ja löydöstä voi lukea myös Ylen artikkelista: https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2018/06/08/yhtakkia-kiven-alta-alkoi-valua-1000-vuotta-vanhoja-rahoja-sysmasta-loytyi

On Friday 27th April, the regular Helsinki Archaeology Seminar is presented by SuALT Project’s Dr Anna Wessman. In her talk, entitled “Engaging with the Public: Introducing the SuALT-project”, she outlines the goals of our project, as well as presenting some of the results of the recent questionnaire survey. These findings shed light on how potential users of the database – within Finland and also abroad – feel about issues such as levels of anonymity and privacy of users, the level of precision for finds coordinates that should be displayed, and the ways in which people might use the SuALT infrastructure for their own research projects in the future.

The event is free to attend, and open to everybody. It takes place in Topelia (Unioninkatu 38), room F115 from 16:00. The presentation will be in English.

Anna’s abstract for the talk is as follows:

SuALT (Suomen arkeologisten löytöjen linkitetty tietokanta), or the Finnish Archaeological Finds Recording Linked Database, is a u unique project within Finnish archaeology. The multidisciplinary project, funded by the Academy of Finland, consists of the University of Helsinki, Helsinki Centre for Digital Humanities (HELDIG), Aalto University and the Finnish Heritage Agency.

We are developing a user-friendly and open database that encourages metal detectorists, but also other finders of chance material, to record their finds in the SuALT database. These finds have a high scientific potential but are not used in academic research at present. By engaging meaningfully with metal detectorists and other stakeholders, the project hopes to ensure that more finds are reported than at present, including retrospective recording. Through our citizens science approach we also hope to contribute in democratizing archaeology.

A commentary/response piece by SuALT PI Suzie Thomas was recently published in the journal Public Archaeology. It appears in Volume 15 Issue 4, which is dated 2016 although the article is published in 2018.

The article, entitled “Metal Detecting in Focus Again — A Response to Immonen and Kinnunen, Winkley, Hardy, and Rogerson” discusses a collection of article concerning metal detecting in Finland, the UK and parts of Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Thomas that although the topic is not necessarily a new one – with themed publications and debates having emerged previously – the current collection brings new research approaches and new case studies to the table.

Suzie also notes the continued emergence of digital and open data interactions between archaeologists and metal detectorists, of which the SuALT project is a part.

Citation:

Thomas, S., 2016. Metal Detecting in Focus Again—A Response to Immonen and Kinnunen, Winkley, Hardy, and Rogerson. Public Archaeology, 15(4): 245-248. https://doi.org/10.1080/14655187.2016.1429786

By Suzie Thomas

On 25th January I attended a workshop meeting hosted by the Römisch-Germanische Komission, part of the German Archaelogical Institute, at their offices in Frankfurt. The meeting was intended to bring together researchers interested in using open data to record portable antiquities, particularly those found by hobbyist metal detectorists.

This meeting was interesting because it brought together, in addition to international researchers from Finland, the UK, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands (see about SuALT’s “cousin” projects elsewhere on our blog), state archaeologists from the different German Federal areas. What was clear, was that while something is known of how much metal detecting activity there is and what its impact might be, it seemed that much of this knowledge is still also rather patchy in places. This is likely one symptom of having different heritage laws in different federations, and it is hopeful that the meeting in Frankfurt may have marked the beginning of more communication between regions on this issue.

The meeting was also an opportunity to update on the various finds-recording open databases and platforms across Europe, including our still-early progress with SuALT in Finland, and hearing more about the progress of the projects of DIME (Denmark), PAN (Netherlands) and MEDEA (Flanders, Belgium). The longest-running finds-recording program, the Portable Antiquities Scheme (England and Wales) was of course also presented.

Finally we had a discussion of the larger linked open data schemes, and specifically ARIADNE. There are hopefully more cooperation opportunities in this impressive program for Finland. Furthermore, the existence of transnational datasets further highlights the importance of integrating our own future databases into existing infrastructures as much as this is possible.

The next day several of us spent the morning user-testing the PAN database, finding out what we as researchers could do with the database as it is currently presented, and what else we might want to see. This was very useful for PAN’s development of course, but also gave important insights into the kinds of capabilities SuALT will need in the future.

In the end, the workshop was extremely useful for reconnecting with many international colleagues, especially when SuALT is planning its own Expert Advisory Panel meeting soon with our overseas specialists in early March. It also highlighted how much dialogue is still needed, not only for developing ways to record finds data that is useful to finders and researchers without compromising archaeological sites, but also for general understanding between different regions concerning the nature and scale of hobbyist interactions with the cultural heritage environment.

Suomen arkeologisten löytöjen linkitetty avoin tietokanta (SuALT) on Suomen akatemian rahoittama monitieteinen hanke (2018-2020), jossa kehitetään metallinetsijöille ja muille arkeologian harrastajille uusi helppokäyttöinen verkkopalvelu. Sen avulla voi muun muassa ilmoittaa arkeologisia löytöjä Museovirastolle kansalaistieteen keinoin, saada lisää tietoa arkeologiasta ja osallistua alan tietämyksen kartuttamiseen Suomessa ja kansainvälisesti.

SuALT tulee jatkossa olemaan se työkalu, jolla kansalaiset voivat ilmoittaa löytöjään ja samalla osallistua maamme arkeologisen tietämyskannan tuottamiseen. Viranomaiset, tutkijat ja kansalaiset pystyvät jatkossa SuALTin avulla hakemaan tietoja ja analysoimaan niitä omissa tutkimuksissaan. Hankkeessa huomioidaan myös eri kokoelmatietojen välinen yhteentoimivuus, koska löytöihin liittyvää aineistoa on saatavilla jo olemassa olevissa kokoelmissa.

Ennen kuin ryhdymme kehittämään SuALTia haluaisimme pyytää tulevilta käyttäjiltä apua. Mitä toimintoja ja palveluita siinä pitäisi ehdottomasti olla mukana? Miltä SuALTin sinun mielestäsi tulisi näyttää?  Auta meitä kehittämään siitä helppokäyttöinen ja toimiva työkalu juuri sinulle!

Vastaa kyselyyn suomeksi täällä

Sähköposti: sualt-project(at)helsinki.fi

The Finnish Archaeological Finds Recording Linked Open Database (SuALT) is a multidisciplinary project funded by the Academy of Finland (2018-2020), which will develop a new easy-to-use web service for metal detectorists and other archeology enthusiasts. Among other things, it will report archaeological finds to the Finnish Heritage Agency through civic means, record more information on archaeology and contribute to the development of knowledge in Finland and internationally.

In the future, SUALT will be the tool for members of the public to report their discoveries and at the same time to participate in the production of our archaeological knowledge base in Finland. Authorities, researchers, and the public will be able to use SuALT to retrieve data and analyze it in their own studies. The project also takes into account the interoperability between various known collections, linking material related to discoveries that is available in existing collections.

Before we start developing SuALT, we would like to ask future users for help. What activities and services should it definitely be involved in? What do you think SuALT should look like? Help us to develop it as an easy to use and functional tool for you!

Complete the survey in English here.

Email: sualt-project(at)helsinki.fi

On January 25th and 26th, SuALT PI Suzie Thomas will be in Frankfurt, Germany, for a meeting about the different portable antiquities and linked data projects across Europe.

The series of meetings, including specialists from Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, are hosted by the German Archaeological Institute, Romano-Germanic Commission.

Following a general meeting about progress across Europe, there is also a focused meeting on the progress of PAN – Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands, which is a “cousin” project of SuALT.

The meetings are an important opportunity for the SuALT project to engage in dialogue and find opportunities for co-working with our European colleagues. Suzie will write a longer blog update after the meeting.

Warmest wishes for the festive season from the SuALT team. We look forward to reporting our research and developing our finds infrastructure in 2018 and beyond. Thanks for following our progress!

By tarkkaa kuvaajan nimeä ei mainita – http://hs11.snstatic.fi/webkuva/oletus/960/1305754270331?ts=428 (http://www.hs.fi/ihmiset/Joulukalenteri+3+luukku/a1305754280910 HS:n Joulukalenteri: 3. luukku 3.12.2013), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30039375