Archaeology
Medieval archaeology is not as well represented on the web as it might be. Some sites are no more than a magazine article on screen, with a few pictures of bones in holes. Given the expense of regular archaeological publication, this is surprising.
Archaeological
Resource Guide for Europe
This is a useful index page of links to sites relating to European archaeology organised by country, subject or time period, part of the WWW Virtual Library. It is probably the best place to start a search.
CBA Guide
to UK Archaeology Online
This is a link page in the WWW Virtual Library suite. This site lists online journals and various government and heritage bodies as well as links to specific archaeological sites or regions.
The producers of this august journal, long regarded as excellent for its breadth of coverage of the archaeological field, have toiled mightily to put the entire contents, with all their many back copies, on to the web, along with current material that they feel is more suited to web publication. Unfortunately, you cannot check it out unless you part with a substantial sum of money each year, or access it from a library that has an institutional subscription. It seems that the cost of, and access to, knowledge on the web is still very much out in the debating arena.
Current Archaeology is a paper journal specialising in brief but up to date reports on what is currently going on in English archaeology. The web site contains indexes of issues of the paper journal, some shortened feature articles and cybertours of archaeological sites. There is some serendipitous medieval material to be found here.
The
Society for Medieval Archaeology
This is actually a rather scruffy site, but it does contain a newsletter, a rather untidy database of article titles from the journal Medieval Archaeology, a list of monographs published by the society, and links. Not much hard archaeological data, but some bibliographical starters.
The Lost Medieval Village
This site is one of those pioneering efforts on the web that never really made the most of the medium. Apart from taking issue with the title, as the village was never actually lost, I feel this site is a good idea not quite finished. There are many excellent visuals showing the work as excavated and reconstructions of the site, but there is simply not enough proper information. You need one of the excellent books on the subject by the computer as you mouse around. The site has not been updated since 1996.
Trust York to be the first historic town with a truly comprehensive archaeological website, with promises of further developments to come. There is archaeological news, excavation reports, tours of sites and monuments and multitudes of pictures. This looks like a great resource which can only get better. However, it would be nice if they settled on a URL and site structure some time soon.
If you Google the name of any historic town you will come up with a range of virtual tours, of variable quality, for each one. This one was one of the first on the web, and the excellent design and concept still stand up well. It links archaeological reports with a virtual tour of the town. It all works, with a clickable map and spatial navigation. It puts those sometimes dry archaeological reports into a visual context. I wonder why nobody else seems to have tried this approach.
The University of York and the Arts and Humanities Research Board have joined forces to provide access to several databases of archaeological research material. This ongoing project is a bit of a struggle, as they try to get database material on older incompatible systems into one accessible format, but the job is progressing.
A strangely limited list of publications and online resources for British archaeology. This looks like a project that didn't quite go anywhere.
