Cite this as: Atalan Çayırezmez, N., Çit, D. and Wright, H. 2025 Digital Archiving in Archaeology: Assessing the State of the Art, Internet Archaeology 67. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.67.1
The Saving European Archaeology from Digital Dark Age (SEADDA) COST Action (CA18128) was funded by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union and aims to create a network for archaeologists and digital specialists to build capacity for the long-term preservation of digital data for archaeology. More than 30 COST countries are involved in SEADDA and have undertaken surveys, publications, workshops, Short Term Scientific Missions (STSMs), and other activities carried out to increase awareness and share expertise. Within the project, 37 “State of the Art” or related journal articles were published across multiple issues in Internet Archaeology 58 and 63. These publications each reflect the current state of stewardship for digital archaeological data in a specific nation, country or region, written from an internal perspective.
This article presents a brief introduction to SEADDA. The focus will be on the insights gained from these state-of-the-art publications and how they contribute to our understanding of digital archaeological data globally. In this study, 33 articles from 29 countries were examined, according to four categories: administrative structures, physical archives, digital archives for archaeological data, and capacity building. In light of the obtained data, it is difficult to generalise about archaeological data processing and management; however, different countries and regions are applying different methods to create repositories. Legislation, budgets, and human resources all influence the processes involved in preserving digital archaeological data for future generations. However, every country must share expertise and engage in capacity building especially in areas such as legislation, human resources, standards, and guidelines—while also prioritising financial support.
Corresponding author: Nurdan Atalan Çayırezmez
[email protected]
British Institute at Ankara
Deniz Çit
[email protected]
British Institute at Ankara
Holly Wright
[email protected]
Archaeology Data Service
Table 1: Articles represented by country
Table 2: Articles represented by region and continent
Table 3: Answer Categories for Questions
Table 4: Analysis of Question 1
Table 5: Analysis of Question 4
Table 6: Analysis of Question 5
Table 7: Analysis of Question 6
Table 8: Analysis of Question 7
Table 9: Analysis of Question 8
Table 10: Analysis of Question 9
Table 11: Analysis of Question 10
Table 12 Analysis of Question 11
Table 13: Analysis of Question 12
Table 14: Analysis of Question 13
Table 15: Analysis of Question 14
Table 16: Analysis of Question 15
Table 17: Analysis of Question 16
Table 18: Analysis of Question 17
Table 19: Analysis of Question 18
Table 20: Analysis of Question 19
Table 21: Analysis of Question 20
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Atalan Çayırezmez, N., Hacigüzeller, P. and Kalayci, T. 2021 'Archaeological Digital Archiving in Turkey', Internet Archaeology 58. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.58.20
Baró, S. B. 2021 'Is it the thought that counts? An evaluation of digital archaeological data archiving in Catalonia', Internet Archaeology 58. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.58.25
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