A recent post from Shawn Graham on his blog Electric Archaeology details some topic modeling research he performed on the Prescot Street excavation data. The post-ex for Prescot Street is currently still in process, but the ARK is live and online for anyone who is interested in accessing the excavation data.
We at L – P recently sent Shawn a CSV download of the context records (exported directly from the ARK interface) which he then used in his modeling. The results are intriguing, and seem to reinforce one of the original driving proponents of ARK: multi-vocality and archaeological narrative. Shawn points out that by keeping the voice of the excavator attached to the interpretation, perhaps “we can tease out the hand/voice of the individual in creating the ‘record’.” Although I don’t fully understand the visualisations (or topic/network modeling for that matter!) it’s very interesting to see someone doing something new with the Prescot Street data – brought to you courtesy of ARK, of course. Thanks for sharing Shawn and keep us posted!
Topic Modeling ‘Pits and Burials’ at the Prescot Street Dig (Shawn Graham)
