Remember when you had to wait months for a dig report to come out in a journal?

Back when I was in school, our professor would get a physical copy of the Journal of Field Archaeology mailed to him, and we'd all crowd around to see the new finds. You'd hear about a big discovery in Turkey or Peru, but the details and photos were locked away for almost a year. Now, I follow a few lead archaeologists on social media and see their team's daily photo dumps from the field in real time. Last week, I was watching live updates from a site in Catalhoyuk while eating my breakfast. It's cool to see the dirt still on their hands, but I do miss the big, deep dive of a finished paper. Has anyone else found a good balance between following the instant updates and waiting for the full analysis?

2 comments

2 Comments

chen.hugo2d ago

You call that "cool", but isn't it just turning real science into cheap content?

theamason2d ago

Actually, making science easy to get is the opposite of cheap. It helps more people learn, which is the whole point. That's what makes it cool, @chen.hugo.