Why Write Another Archaeology Software?

An obvious question is why go into the effort of writing a new piece of archaeological software when a plethora of existing solutions are available (try to google "archaeology management software"). A few considerations led to this decision:

• Financial:
  Some tools are either costly or require costly hardware (iPad comes to mind). Unlike established/well known excavations that enjoy institutional support and often proud themselves on the use of cutting edge technology (e.g. iDig, Pompei), the Jezreel Project team chose not to invest its budget on these gudgets. Self-hosting was, and still is the cheapest solution for web-presence for lack of institutional support.

• Complexity:
  Some available solutions are extremely complex and deemed an overkill for the project's needs (e.g. Ochre, Arches) In addition, some tools` emphasis on GIS/Total station integration was deemed unnecessary.

• Lack of web support:
  Some software tools are not web-based (e.g. FileMaker based varieties like Stratum) and may require significant efforts to facilitate web publication.

• Lack of support for web publication:
  Some of the web-based software are designed as management tools, with no publication capabilities foresight and may require significant efforts to facilitate web publication (e.g. codifi, diggit).

• Lack of web collaboration capabilities:
  Some web publication solutions (e.g. Open Context) gurantee future availability but do not allow for modifications once the data is published.

• The thrill of writing a bespoke software to match one's specific needs

A note about archaeological data publication:

The accumulation of large amounts of small finds, written records, photographs and other media is common to many archaeological excavations. While traditionally the publication of seasonal reports and a final excavation report was the gold standard, these printed publications are ill-suited to handle the plethora of (mostly digital born) data accumulated in modern excavations.

The ubiquity and low cost of digital photography and web prevelance naturally raises the expectations from archaeological publications. Why should only a limited selection of the photographs be published (as in standard final report) and not all? How to make this data accessible on web? Who will store and guarantee the future availability of the data?

The tools discussed above vary in their level of support for web publication (from none to a sole focus on future availability of static data). Web publication was a priority in the design the software. Of course, actual web publication involves numerous factors beyond the availability of a specific software tool and can only be addresses at an institutional level.