Dokumentationsproblemer indenfor arkæologien

Problems of documentation in archaeology When documentation is spoken of in connection with archaeology, it is usually in the sense of the presentation of proof for the interpretation of observations made during excavation or during the study of artefacts, but documentation has another meaning: to collect, arrange, catalogue and retrieve all kinds of documents. By document is meant any communication made by man which has found a more or less permanent form. In all disciplines there is a continuous accumulation of various kinds of information, data, which at some stage will be used again to provide new knowledge, and these data must be arranged in such a way that they are easy to find again - information retrieval. The entire archaeological material -artefacts and descriptions of investigated monuments­ consists of such data, communications of a more or less permanent nature. This material is already enormous and is growing faster and faster. Numerous principles of arrangement, of varying practicability, corresponding to the equally numerous points of view involved in subsequent treatment of this material, are in existence. None of them ensures that the desired material can be retrieved irrespective of the approach. The ideal is the registration and arrangement of the necessary information in such a way that it is easy to find, whichever aspect is to be studied. An advanced and central documentation should seek to eliminate the following: 1) The eventual loss of information which is stored privately or purely mentally. 2) The inaccessibility of information which is recorded in an idiom which cannot be fully understood by an outsider. 3) The repetitive elementary cataloguing which is the beginning of much research. 4) The tedious or fruitless searching of different museum store-rooms for analogous material which has been dispersed according to the particular arrangement employed in storage. 5) Wear and tear on objects and archives caused by repeated searching. Just as mechanization transferred much labour from a purely muscular to a controlling role, an advanced documentation should free scholars from the tedious and repetitive searches of large collections of material and give them time and energy for more creative work. But just as artisans were opposed to the mechanization of their trades and consequent devaluation of their skills, opposition can only be expected from many whose memory will be made partly superfluous by such documentation, which is basica