Kate Sharpe

‘I want to be provoked’: public involvement in the development of the Northumberland Rock Art on Mobile Phones project

Abstract Northumberland has a long history of public engagement surrounding its ancient rock-art. Recent advances in digital technologies have enabled archaeologists to enrich this engagement through the provision of open access to substantial rock-art datasets online. Building on these achievements, the Rock Art on Mobile Phones (RAMP) project allows Northumberlands countryside visitors to access in situ interpretation at three rock-art areas on their mobile phones. During the RAMP co-experience workshops it emerged that the key issues the public expected to be addressed by the mobile interpretation included locating rock-art, the desire for ambiguity and speculation about rock-art, and connecting to the landscape. The paper discusses, on the one hand, how these themes were incorporated into RAMPs conceptual design and, on the other hand, how RAMP themes compare with the Audience Development Plan produced by the archaeologists who created an online database. We consider the implications of these findings for the development of open-access online resources and in situ public interpretation.

Situating Cultural Technologies Outdoors: Empathy in the Design of Mobile Interpretation of Rock Art in Rural Britain

Mobile applications are presently at the forefront of interpreting outdoor historical and archaeological sites. This chapter discusses the methodological approach adopted in the Rock art mobile project (RAMP) which addresses the challenge of designing and delivering mobile interpretation at three Neolithic and Early Bronze Age rock art areas in Northumberland, UK. RAMP proposes a departure from the more traditional design approaches of delivering scientific content in the form of an archaeological mobile guide. It acknowledges that rock art interpretation requires a ‘design space’, which facilitates empathy between users and designers, and allows the existing archaeological content, the public’s fascination with the ‘cryptic’ meaning of the rock art sites and the technological, environmental and personal situation of the user to be explored and to inspire technological development.

Johan Ling. Elevated rock art: towards a maritime understanding of Bronze Age rock art in northern Bohuslän, Sweden (Swedish Rock Art Research 2). 2014. xiv+271 pages, numerous colour and bw 978-1-78297-762-9 hardback £40.

O’Brien critically evaluates prevailing concepts and paradigms such as the question of task specialisation and the division of labour. He convincingly argues that some element of specialisation is likely, but should not be overestimated. He also questions the idea of professional miners in the sense of permanent occupational groups; the evidence points towards part-time activities undertaken on a seasonal basis. Further topics such as the evidence for child labour or severe environmental impacts are critically reviewed. In relation to the latter, substantial woodland clearance is not recorded and the evidence for impact on vegetation is restricted to a local scale. Last but not least, he discusses the idea of a close connection between early metallurgy and growing social complexity. On the basis of three case studies, O’Brien deconstructs this still dominant notion by showing that early copper production was, in many cases, small scale and took place on a seasonal basis. Instead, he argues, the archaeological record indicates that agricultural prosperity stimulated the development of metallurgy. With this survey of social and economic aspects, O’Brien succeeds in revising established thinking in many details.