The Avebury Papers: digitisation, exploration and creative re-use of a uniquely important archaeological archive.

Lead Research Organisation: Bournemouth University
Department Name: Faculty of Science and Technology

Abstract

Context: The proposed research focuses upon the dramatic phase of monument construction that characterises the later Neolithic of the British Isles. This is a period that saw the creation of a wide and varied range of megalithic, timber and earth structures, alongside the development of extensive landscapes of linked and interwoven monuments. Nowhere is this more apparent than Avebury, north Wiltshire. A key component of the UNESCO Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, the Avebury henge is one of the pre-eminent megalithic monuments of the European Neolithic, sitting alongside Stonehenge, the Boyne Valley passage graves and Carnac alignments. Its 420m diameter earthwork encloses the world's largest stone circle, which in turn encloses two smaller (yet still colossal) megalithic circles of c.100m diameter - the northern and southern inner circles. Within each of the latter are further complex stone settings. From two of its four entrances lead avenues of paired standing stones that together extend for c.3.5km linking with other monumental constructions. It sits at the heart of a landscape rich in later Neolithic monuments, among them Silbury Hill and the West Kennet palisade enclosures. Avebury has stood at the heart of developing narratives of the Neolithic period in the British Isles - a period of remarkable transformation in the ways in which people understood and engaged with the world. Avebury's history has a resonance that extends far beyond the British Isles, informing research on a range of fundamental questions concerning the European Neolithic such as: what sparked this remarkable period of monument construction? What was the inspiration for the monumental forms we observe? Why were specific locations chosen to monumentalise?

Aims & Objectives: Despite its international importance, detailed knowledge of Avebury is sorely lacking. The only large-scale excavations to take place at Avebury were carried out in the first half of the 20th Century, with an ambitious programme of open area excavation brought to an abrupt end by the outbreak of WWII. As a result, we have only a partial understanding of the range, character and relationships between the features present at Avebury. This lack of understanding is due to a failure to synthesise, integrate and make available the full detail encoded in the archives resulting from this extensive early 20th century work - much of which was methodologically exemplary - as well as much smaller ad-hoc investigations that took place after. This has lead to only partial understandings of this pivotal site, circular arguments, repeated rediscoveries and a serial forgetting of the results of previous work. To rectify this we will complete the work that ended so abruptly in 1939: carrying out unfinished programmes of detailed post-excavation analysis and synthesising the mass of unpublished detail that survives only in archive form. Most critically, we will make the full set of data available and accessible through the design and implementation of an ambitious, open access digital archive, that will provide a baseline from which all future engagements with Avebury can proceed. This will not only support future archaeological and Heritage studies, but is expressly designed to stimulate, foster and nurture innovative public and creative engagement.

Applications & Benefits: The results will have enormous significance for the general public, creative industries and all academic students of prehistory, revealing in detail the origins and subsequent life-history of one of Europe's most important prehistoric sites. They will also allow for effective heritage management (through a fuller understanding of the WHS and its history) as well as enhanced education and tourism potential. Avebury has always been an object of fascination, and as international media interest in recent discoveries has demonstrated, public interest in Avebury is global.

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description To date the project has enrolled and fully trained 32 volunteers from the general public (alongside an undergraduate placement student form Bournemouth University) who have worked alongside the core staff to: complete the process of full archive digitisation (4,199 books and documents & 17,768 individual photographic records); catalogue the newly generated records (97.8% completed to date) and transcribe hand-written books, journals and documents (49.5% completed to date). The physical collections have likewise been fully catalogued and are currently away with specialists for full analysis and interpretation. The project's artists commissions were advertised, attracting over 130 applications from a wide range of practitioners. Through a rigorous process of shortlisting and interview two artists have now been selected and will begin their work in summer 2024. The project has also initiated a proof-of-concept study in the use of machine-learning to automatically identify specific megaliths (standing stones) from archival photographs (which often only depict portions or parts of individual megaliths) which has in turn prompted the first digital photogrammetric survey of the site of Avebury in order to generate training data sets. This work has enormous potential impact, not only in providing a unique entry point into the digital archive for members of the public (a holiday snap taken at Avebury at any point in the past for example) as well as creating a new tool for archival practitioners that takes advantage of the latest developments in machine-learning.
First Year Of Impact 2024
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Cultural

Societal

 
Description "Is this your first visit to Avebury?" - Creating, Using, and Reusing Archaeological Data in the Avebury Papers - CAA Conference April 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact April 2023. 40 attendees at the CAA 'Computer and Qualitative Methods in Archaeology' conference, Amsterdam. As part of the 'TETRACHs' programme for the conference. Presented on the project progress and workflows, seeking feedback from practitioner-researchers on the same. This directly influenced approaches to building the archive.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description @AveburyPapers instagram profile 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The @AveburyPapers on instagram profile is where we share project updates and highlights from the archive. The following has grown to over 1000 in 1 year. People interested in archival materials have been in touch with us via the 'direct message' system on Instagram, sharing information and knowledge about archival materials, or requesting archival materials for use in a range of projects.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023,2024
URL https://www.instagram.com/aveburypapers/
 
Description Academic Lecture at RCA - Digital Worldbuilding through Archaeology and Heritage 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact The Event of Archaeology - A series of Lectures, Workshops and Screenings at the School of Architecture, Royal College of Art
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://pgr.rca-architecture.com/event-series/the-event-of-archaeology
 
Description Artefact cleaning with volunteers 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The project involves the analysis of a large archive of artefacts from the excavations of Avebury. Some of this material requires cleaning prior to analysis. This has been taken as an opportunity to engage the public (specifically National Trust volunteers) in helping with the project and engaging with the material. This is an ongoing activity in which volunteers help with cleaning artefacts and ensuring they are ready for analysis. This process will also involve a talk to the volunteers about the area of the site that the artefacts come from and the research potential of this particular artefact group. This is seen as a key element of public engagment. This activity will allow members of the public to not only get experience in handling artefacts, but also to become directly involved in the project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Avebury Papers website 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The Avebury Papers website hosts a blog with regular updates from members of the research team, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students who have contributed to the project. Highlights include a series on Prof Mark Gillings' methodology to map the Keiller excavations using GIS; a co-written piece on Florence St George Gray by Dr Ben Chan and volunteer Prue Saunders which was picked up by the National Trust marketing team for International Women's Day 2024; a piece on 'Psychometry and the giants of Avebury' by Dr Colleen Morgan and Dr Fran Allfrey, which received comments from scholars in the field of 'pseudoarchaeology'; and reflections on placement activities by students Caitlin Herod (Bournemouth University), Dushyant Naresh (York), and Kiri Liu (Southampton). 13 individuals have been in touch with us via the contact form, which has initiated visits to the archive, student research, and family history research linked to the collection.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023,2024
URL https://www.aveburypapers.org/category/blog/
 
Description Community Launch Event 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The project involves the digitisation and study of an excavation site from a major Neolithic monument (the henge and stone circle of Avebury), which is part of a National Trust property. The community launch event was organised to announce the project to the local community, and the National Trust volunteers. In addition, the event was designed to attract volunteers from the general public to become a part of the project and help with the digitisation of the archive. The event was extremely succesful and resulted in numerous volunteers signing up to help with the project over a period of approximately 6 months. This covers the initial digitisation stage, but it is anticipated that the volunteers will continue to help as we move towards subsequent phases of the project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Community Update - 12 July 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof Mark Gillings, Dr Ben Chan, Dr Fran Allfrey, and Dr Ros Cleal give updates on the Avebury Papers project for local people and volunteers. At the Avebury non-conformist Chapel events space.
30 people attend, many of whom are Avebury locals. We have some really interesting questions, concerning history of Avebury, the use and reuse of the archive, how accessible it will be to use (in terms of ease of use, in terms of how it will look at feel, in terms of the kinds of questions that can be asked). There's interest in bringing together lots of published research into the public domain free of use. Feedback gathered in field notes to inform future research.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Community Update - 13 December 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Dr Fran Allfrey gave update on photography of the paper archive for local people and volunteers. Included a 1 hour q and a and informal feedback session, attendees discussed in small groups and shared information they would like to see accompanying images. At the National Trust Education Centre.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Community Update - 21 March 2023 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Dr Fran Allfrey and Caitlin Herod give an update on the digitisation progress so far to community and National Trust volunteers, at the National Trust Avebury Education Centre. Feedback was sought to help gather questions that people have about the collection.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Community Update - 4 March 2024 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Dr Ben Chan gave update on the photography of the artefacts, on 'assemblages', for local people and volunteers. Attendees gave feedback throughout the talk, and asked questions about the process and outcomes of photography. At the Avebury nonconformist Chapel. 27 attendees, including National Trust volunteers, staff, and local residents.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
 
Description Departmental Lecture to the Archaeology Dept of the University of York 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact A Lecture presented to staff and students of the Dept of Archaeology, University of York.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/dah-lab/lectures
 
Description Paper - Archaeology in Wiltshire Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact A presentation on the archive digitisation work that has been carried out by the project to date to an audience of 150 professionals and members of the general public. This annual conference is to showcase key archaeological research work that has taken place within Wiltshire.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2024
URL https://www.wiltshiremuseum.org.uk/?event=archaeology-in-wiltshire-conference-2024
 
Description Radio Interview on BBC Radio York 
Form Of Engagement Activity A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press)
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact A radio interview with Dr. Colleen Morgan by BBC Radio York.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description The Sun news article 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact A news article by the Sun about the Avebury Papers Project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/20999437/avebury-henge-purpose-revealed/
 
Description Visit and talk to students from the Royal Agricultural University 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Staff and students of the RAU Heritage MSc visited Avebury and were given a talk on the aims and outcomes of the project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
 
Description Yorkshire Post News Article 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact An interview with Co-Investigator Dr. Colleen Morgan by the Yorkshire Post about the Avebury Papers Project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/york-archaeologist-to-help-share-the-sec...
 
Description Young Archaeologists Club Activity 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Young Archaeologists Club activity with Georgia Smith. The activity focussed on the archives at Avebury and featured data and images from the archive.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023