Archive report: Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2007

As the Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2007 is online as a large PDF, I've copied my report below [update – and added the PDF to Humanities Commons at https://doi.org/10.17613/3n8z-9z11]. In 2007 I'd worked with the team during the off-season (i.e. when people aren't on site digging) and on-site. Being on site meant providing general IT and network support (and dealing with occasional oddities like a spontaneously combusting monitor) while working on requirements analysis and database development in the lab. I also contributed to the Çatalhöyük blog during the 2007 season.

IMG_1222
My Flickr album of photos from 2007 on site (and other bits around Turkey)

Blog posts from 2007:

Continue reading "Archive report: Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2007"

Archive report: Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2006

As the Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2006 is only available online as a large PDF, I've copied the report below [update: and put the PDF on Humanities Commons at https://doi.org/10.17613/2shn-2v07], but you can find additional reporting of my work in specialist reports like the Figurines report. I also contributed to the Çatalhöyük blog during the 2006 season.

CIMG1203
My Flickr album of photos from 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 on-site (plus trips to Konya and journeys to and from site)

Çatalhöyük blog posts, 2006:

Continue reading "Archive report: Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2006"

Archive report: Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2004

While I'd started working on the project in 2003, 2004 was my first year on site at Çatalhöyük, a research dig at a Neolithic site in Anatolian Turkey.

My role was to discover the data recording, analysis and publication requirements for various specialist labs as well as the dig as a whole while working to clean, merge and centralise various stand-alone Access databases onto a single SQL Server installation.  I worked on specialist databases including Figurines, Pottery, Stamp seals, Human remains, Digital photography, Faunal, Crates, Finds Log, Conservation, Micromorphology, and the shared Diary.

While I was familiar with the single context recording system used on site, as a post-processual site, it was an interesting change from working with MoLAS and I found my previous background as a humanities student informed my understanding of the need to structure the recording of material and formal characteristics of various finds across existing specialisms.

With Rich May I wrote a brief Database & IT Developments report for the Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2004. The impact of the on-going database work is evident in other reports, such as the Figurines 2004 report.