I’m Luke and I am currently studying for an MSc in Digital Archaeology at the University of York. Since September, my course has been highly integrated with the Avebury Papers Project, as I studied Dr Colleen Morgan’s module on Digital Creativity. For my assessment, I was tasked with creating a visualisation of Avebury using digital methods. In the end, I created an AR representation of both the Avebury Beech Trees and a Stone from the site using Blender and Adobe Aero which turned out quite well! A screen grab of the result is below.
3D Render of reconstructed Avebury Stone and Beech Tree (Luke Ashworth, 2025)
For the 2025 Spring semester, I am officially on placement with the project. I have started out by creating transcriptions of some of the material created by Denis Grant King which has been fascinating. I am particularly interested in the illustrations such as the one shown below depicting a “roofed sanctuary” at the nearby site on Overton Hill. Drawings like this give insight into the imagination of the 1930s archaeologists as they were formulating ideas of what could have been during the neolithic period.
“Roofed Sanctuary” illustration from notes made by Denis Grand King, undated. Alexander Keiller Museum accession number 20000577-005, cc-by-0.
I am interested in historical reconstruction and I am keen to use my digital background to further this passion. I plan to use this placement to create interesting interpretations of what is at the site today and what could have been – both in the neolithic, and during more recent histories as medieval and modern people made changes to Avebury and surrounding sites – using what I learn from the Avebury Archive.
[Editor’s note from Fran Allfrey: What are your favourite visual representations of Avebury? What do you think a virtual Avebury can offer that enhances the physical site, or enables people living far away to experience? Let us know in the comments!]
A vital part of the Avebury Papers project is to bring Avebury’s archives to the widest possible audience. With billions of page views every month, and its content scraped to power artificial intelligence, digital assistants, and search engines, there’s a case to be made that Wikipedia is one of the most effective ways to get information – including images – out into the world.
Below, I’ll outline what we’ve been doing ‘on-Wiki’ with Avebury Papers material. But first, I have to give a nod to ‘Beyond Notability‘, a project looking to recover the stories of women in archaeology. This project has shown how Wikipedia and Wikidata are powerful tools not only for sharing finished research, but also managing and enriching research-in-progress. The ‘Beyond Notability’ team – Professor Katherine Harloe, Dr Amara Thornton, Professor James Baker, Dr Ammandeep Mahal, and Dr Sharon Howard – certainly inspired me to include Wiki within the scope of Avebury Papers activities, and also were so helpful when I reached out to ask questions early in this project, so thanks are due to them.
So, what have we done so far with Wiki and the Avebury Papers, and what’s in the pipeline?
Wikipedia is perhaps the best-known of the Wiki projects. But, it’s not really the place to share research-in-progress: it’s an encyclopedia, which should only gather information and images that are linked to already-published sources. So, the big impacts on Wikipedia for the Avebury Papers will have to come *after* we’ve released the archive online with the Archaeology Data Service (ADS). For now, we’ve made small improvements to Avebury-related articles drawing upon information from Isobel Smith’s Windmill Hill and Avebury (for instance, adding in the Stone number for the ‘Barber Surgeon of Avebury’).
A screen grab of the ‘Barber surgeon of Avebury’ Wikipedia article in December 2024, with a sentence and reference highlighted added as part of the Avebury Papers project.
And we’ve been adding a few photos to Avebury-related articles, just to demonstrate what people will be able to do with Avebury material once it is released with the ADS. For instance, Denis Grant King’s article now features a map from one of his diaries.
A screen grab of the Wikipedia article for ‘Denis Grant King’ in December 2024, with a sentence and reference highlighted added as part of the Avebury Papers project.
Any photo on Wikipedia has to first be uploaded to Wikicommons. Wikicommons is Wiki’s image repository, where you can store images and information about them (and anyone can then download and reuse this material however they want). In 2025, the staff and volunteer team will be selecting a few ‘fan favourite’ photographs from the archive to share via Wikicommons and Wikipedia, as a way of – hopefully – encouraging more people to go to the ADS to find the super high res versions and more information.
To prepare for sharing information and images from the archive on Wikipedia, this year 13 Avebury Papers volunteers attended a training session run by the National Trust’s first Wikipedian in Residence, Lucy Moore (who also happens to be a doctoral researcher at York, and something of a legend in Wiki circles!).
One of our volunteers, known as Peregrinate Allevana on-Wiki, was so inspired by Lucy’s session that they couldn’t wait to get started, and they’ve gone on to edit thousands of Japanese Wikitionary entries. Their fabulous efforts have been recognised by Wikimedia UK, who awarded Peregrinate Allevana “Up and coming Wikimedian of the Year”! Congratulations PA!
We’ll be turning those skills towards Avebury material in the coming months…
Florence St George Gray’s Wikidata entry, showing the various names she is known by in the collection.
Wikidata is the third Wiki site we’re using for this project. As I mentioned above, this is not only an excellent space for sharing research, but a very powerful tool to help research-in-progress.
Wikidata is a multi-lingual Linked Open Database. Essentially, this is a space in which to store information about people, objects, and concepts, in a structured way. Wikidata’s structure allows users to run ‘queries’ (that is, ask questions using the coding language SPARQL) to generate lists or maps.
I have recently been cleaning the catalogue data we’ve made during this project using Wikidata. One way that we are symbiotically improving our data and improving Wikidata is in relation to the people of the archive. Wikidata draws together unique identifying numbers that already exist in different collections for historical individuals, and we’ve been able to add the various aliases (nicknames or abbreviated names) for people that are found in the Avebury collection. This helps me to ‘clean’ our data, so that names of people can be standardised (eg. ensure that F St George Gray, Mrs St George Gray, Florence Young, and Florence St George Gray are all the same individual). With over 1000 names in our archive, this is an ongoing task in the coming months. This will not only make our catalogue easier to search internally, but also sets up our data to link with collections around the world!
As an experiment, we have also added the stones of Avebury to Wikidata, along with their coordinates, and, in a few cases, photographs from the archive. This data can now be queried to create a map of the stones (screengrab below, or you can run the query yourself here, just click the blue ‘play’ button on the page you land on!).
A screengrab of the result of a SPARQL query that draws upon data about Avebury stones stored in Wikidata: it’s a map of Avebury, with the stones plotted and some images embedded.
Between Wikipedia, Wikicommons, and Wikidata, Avebury’s data will be sprinkled in various formats across the internet, as human-readable text, images, and structured data. Hopefully, this means that people are more likely to stumble across Avebury Papers-created material when they run a Google search for related keywords.
What we are creating as part of the Avebury Papers are only very simple example of what people will be able to do with the archive once it is released with the ADS. Not only will it be interesting to see where Avebury Papers data ends up, but I also hope that people will enrich and change and add to the data: to enable queries and visualisations which pull Avebury materials together with information from other collections, or in creative combinations that I can’t even imagine yet.
Finally, a big thank you to the judges for the Wikimedia UK Awards, who awarded me the rather fancy title of ‘UK Wikimedian of the Year 2024’. It’s very humbling indeed, as Wikidata is still a very experimental space for me, and there are so many fabulous individuals and projects out there that have inspired me – not least Lucy Moore and Richard Nevell (and it was a total delight writing an article together championing Wiki for historians and archaeologists). Wiki-stuff started out as a hobby while I was studying for my Masters, and I now volunteer as a trainer for Wikimedia UK in my spare time. It’s so rewarding being able to bring my love of all things Wiki to the Avebury Papers, and I am looking forward to sharing more results from this project!
Do also check out Amara Thornton’s 2012 article which was – and still is – ahead of the curve, and which I inexplicably managed to edit out of the final version of the Postmedieval piece. Amara Thornton, ‘Wikipedia and Blogs: A New Field for Archaeological Research?’, in C. Bonacchi, ed. Archaeologists and the Digital: Towards Strategies of Engagement (London: Archetype, 2012), pp. 103-113.
The ‘Beyond Notability‘ database by Professor Katherine Harloe, Dr Amara Thornton, Professor James Baker, Dr Ammandeep Mahal, and Dr Sharon Howard.
The ‘Survey of Scottish Witches‘ project at Edinburgh University which absolutely shows the power of Wikidata for storing and querying historical data.
In this second blog on the visitors to Avebury that are mentioned by Denis Grant King (DGK) in his journals, I’ll be covering the period from 22 August to 1 September 1938.
To summarise his journal so far: Denis arrived in Avebury on Tuesday, 16 August 1938, not sure if he’d even get an interview with Alexander Keiller who had seemed rather dismissive in their pre-Avebury correspondence. Thinking he had nothing to lose, he packed his bags and some of his artwork, and took the bus to Avebury. However, it wasn’t until 19th August that he managed to secure a meeting with Alexander Keiller, who, impressed by his quality of artistic work, took Denis on as a draughtsman for a probationary period. It seems Denis settled in quite nicely to life in Avebury and quickly became a well-liked person in the village.
22 August 1938
On Monday 22 August 1938, there was great excitement in the museum when archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans unexpectedly turned up to visit. In 1900, Sir Arthur undertook excavations at the Minoan palace of Knossos, having previously bought the land. He was a key developer of the study of Bronze Age Aegean civilisations as well as defining the Cretan scripts Linear A and Linear B. He would have been about 87 years old at the time of his visit and DGK describes him as a thin-faced, slight, elderly man.
The photograph of Sir Arthur is from his Wikipedia page. It’s unclear how old he was when it was taken, but later photographs are more in keeping with DGK’s description of his ‘thin face’. Sir Arthur died on 8 July 1941, less than three years after his visit to Avebury.
25 August 1938
On Thursday, 25 August, a Dr. Curwen and his son visited Avebury and were shown around the site by Norman Cook. This was Eliot Cecil Curwen, a well-known archaeologist who was based at the Brighton and Hove museum. He wrote extensively about archaeological subjects based in East Sussex, concentrating mostly on the prehistoric. A full list of his articles is available from the Archaeology Data Service. Dr Curwen was also a surgeon, so obviously a well-educated man. Therefore, it comes as quite a surprise to find Alexander Keiller said he was very religious and started every excavation with a religious ceremony and “would not recognise a stone older than 4004 B.C.”
28 September 1938
That Sunday, Mr W. Bevan Whitney and his family visited Avebury, staying at the Red Lion. DGK got talking to them and thoroughly enjoyed his conversation, and he was especially delighted that the two sons, Joe and John, were particularly interested in taking part. DGK’s initial impression was that Mr Whitney was some sort of analytical chemist, and he describes him as being a stout clean-shaven man, aged about 50, six-feet in height, and quietly spoken. Mrs Whitney is described as being tall with fair-grey hair, and very charming. Denis’s first impressions on Mr Whitney’s job weren’t spot on, instead he worked in the field of electricity. He was a member of The British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association and also co-authored an article published in Nature 119 titled “A Convenient and Rapid Method of Sampling” which you can read online.
1 September 1938
Father Horne (his full name and title is ‘the Right Reverend Abbott Dom Ethelbert Horne’), a Roman Catholic priest from Downside Abbey, gets several mentions in Denis’s journals. On the 1 September 1938 he visited Avebury, accompanied by a lady. DGK fails to give any more information on who this lady is or what she looks like, but he describes Father Horne as being elderly, clean-shaven, and with rather large features and extremely bushy eyebrows, which, as you can see from the photograph below was a rather accurate description.
According to his obituary he would go on to become the Abbott of Glastonbury Abbey and was a long-standing member of the Somerset Archaeological and Natural History Society. Father Horne died at Downside Abbey on 3rd November 1952.
And so ends this second instalment of Visitors to Avebury. Four interesting but very different people drawn to Avebury to see this amazing pre-historic site.
The view along the West Kennet Avenue as you face towards Avebury
As you walk along the West Kennet Avenue you may be unaware that you are walking over the remains of prehistoric settlement. The site, known as the West Kennet Avenue occupation site, was first discovered by Alexander Keiller’s team in 1934, and re-excavated by Professor Josh Pollard, and Avebury Papers project leader Professor Mark Gillings from 2013-15.
If you want to find the site today, stand at the end of West Kennet Avenue’s re-erected pairs of standing stones furthest from Avebury, turn towards the henge and count along 6 pairs of standing stones and you will be at the beginning of the occupation site. The “site” itself consists of a concentrated scatter of thousands of artefacts, predominantly worked flint and some prehistoric pottery, stretching along the Avenue for 140m. Accompanying this scatter are a small number of pits and post-holes.
The location of the West Kennet Avenue occupation site (Figure drawn by J. Pollard)
The term ‘occupation site’ may seem rather grand for what is little more than a scatter of artefacts, but such is the ephemeral nature of Neolithic domestic architecture in southern Britain, that this is most often all that remains of prehistoric settlements.
In the absence of architectural remains, understanding prehistoric settlements can be difficult. In order to find out more about the character, timing and duration of occupation, Avebury Papers Project member Ben Chan conducted an analysis of the artefacts in the scatter. The analysis focused on a type of flint tool known as a microdenticulate. ‘Microdenticulate’ literally means ‘small teeth’ – and it is fitting, as these are flint tools with finely serrated edges, often having more than one denticulation every millimetre! Analysis of the wear traces on the edges of the tools shows that they were used to process plant fibres for making textiles and cordage.
An example of a microdenticulate from the West Kennet Avenue occupation site.
The results of Ben’s analysis show that the bulk of the artefact scatter relates to a Middle Neolithic (c. 3400-2900 BC) settlement, but that the microdenticulates were used during a separate, later phase of occupation, probably during the clearance of vegetation from the abandoned settlement site. These insights provide us with crucial insight into the character of the inhabitation of the Avebury landscape in the period leading up to the construction of the henge and its avenues.
The analysis has recently been published. If you are interested in reading the article, it can be read and downloaded for free over on the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Thank you to PAST magazine for printing a two years in progress report for the Avebury Papers! You can read the full report as a PDF at this link.
The report finishes with a call for action!
“YOU can also help shape the look and feel of the online archive! We want to hear from you if you have ever used the Avebury archive (and you have ideas of which objects to highlight; or ways that we can organise the digital archive in ways which will facilitate your research or teaching); or if you have an interest in exploring materials (artefacts or paper documentation) from the Harold St George Gray (1908-1922) excavations of the Avebury bank and ditch, and Alexander Keiller’s (1934-1939) work on West Kennet Avenue and Avebury stone circles.
Please be in touch with Fran Allfrey (via our contact page) to register your interest in participating in user research.”
Below you can watch Georgia Smith’s presentation given at The Council for British Archaeology and CIfA’s 2024 Early Careers Special Interest Group online conference. The conference was delivered during Youth Day sponsored by the Royal Archaeological Institute as part of the CBA Festival of Archaeology.
Summary: “In recent years, archaeology education for young people has been reduced dramatically, notably by the removal of the archaeology A-level in 2016. The reduction of opportunities to study archaeology in formal education has amplified the need for effective and engaging out-of-school resources. Achieving a balance between presenting archaeological information accurately and presenting it in an age-appropriate manner is key to inspire interest in archaeology, and it is needed now more than ever before.
Currently, the Avebury Papers project is in the process of digitising, transcribing, and publishing online the museum’s archive, which contains a multitude of media including artefacts, photographs, and written documents dating mostly from the 1934-39 excavations led by Keiller. The team is a collaboration of the University of Bristol, the University of York, the National Trust, and the Archaeology Data Service, with support from Historic England and English Heritage.
This study explored effective methods of communicating archaeological techniques to children. As part of this, a two-hour session was delivered to a Young Archaeologists’ Club branch, and its success was evaluated using survey data from both the children and the group leaders. The session was themed around archaeological diaries and included two activities exploring transcription and creative writing, using resources gathered from the Alexander Keiller Museum archive at Avebury. The study concluded with several key points to consider when designing activities for Young Archaeologists’ Club: focus on activities that simulate archaeological methods, consult existing resources, and make evidence clear for leaders who are not archaeologists.
Overall, this research highlights the importance of out-of-school archaeological resources for children, and the responsibility of institutions to use the information they care for to create meaningful and engaging resources. Currently, archaeology within schools is limited to when it fits the National Curriculum, and thus supporting the Young Archaeologists’ Club and other extracurricular groups is vital to inspire the young archaeologists of today and to generate a lifelong interest in the field.”
The Avebury Papers project is mentioned by Joe Flatman in the 2 July 2024 instalment of his “Excavating the CA archive” column for The Past (the online home of Current Archaeology and other magazines):
“For many people, Avebury means the Neolithic stone circle located in the Wiltshire village, and as such I commence there and work my way outwards. Alexander Keiller, the ‘Marmalade Millionaire’, was an influential landowner and field archaeologist across the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. He used his wealth to buy a large amount of the land in Avebury, but the National Trust gradually became the majority landowner of the village and the wider prehistoric landscape through a series of gifts and acquisitions, commencing in 1943 and concluding with the purchase of Avebury Manor in 1991. This complex history is told in an excellent series of museums, and there is currently a project digitising and exploring its archaeological archive (see http://www.aveburypapers.org). As they explain: ‘the only large-scale archaeological excavations to take place at Avebury were conducted just before the outbreak of WWII. Materials and objects collected and made at this time were left under-analysed for decades. As a result, we have – until now – only had a partial understanding of Avebury’s past and present’. This absence of fieldwork also explains the modest interest of Current Archaeology in the henge, with only five visits of note in over 50 years – CA 97 (June 1985), CA 225 (December 2008), CA 330 (September 2017), CA 332 (November 2017), and CA 351 (June 2019). Of these, the most significant news came in CA 330, when a square monument was unexpectedly identified within one of the stone circles, proving to be among the earlier structures on the site, although its use remains unknown.”
On 1 June 2024, I was joined by Prue Saunders and Bev Stapleton, research volunteers for the Avebury Papers Project, to discuss how the project is revealing the stories of the people who made Avebury what it is today.
The Wiltshire Museum are very generously supporting the project by lending diaries written by William E V Young to be transcribed and photographed. They also happily invited us to give a public talk.
William Young, or ‘WEVY’, not only kept meticulous notes about excavations at Avebury from 1934 to 1940, he also wrote astonishingly evocative memories of daily life across Wiltshire, especially his home in Ebbesbourne Wake, and visits to other archaeological sites.
By bringing together WEVY’s material with diaries kept by Alexander Keiller and Denis Grant King held at the Avebury Museum, the full extent of the human effort of the 1930s excavations is made clear.
WEVY’s diaries are a vital resource for understanding the social, political and cultural contexts of early 20th century archaeology, providing a window into life 100 years ago.
You can listen to a recording of the talk, and find the event details on the Wiltshire Museum website.
[Editor’s note:Kiri completed a student placement with the Avebury Papers as part of her masters’ programme at University of Southampton. The team are so happy to publish one of the key outcomes of the placement here. You can more about Kiri’s experience in her first blog post. The downloadable teaching materials may be found at the bottom of this post.]
I am almost at the end of my placement at Avebury Papers this term. During my placement, I worked on a very interesting project: creating a teaching resource for high school students based on the Avebury archives and excavated artefacts. The main objective is to take them on an exploration of how 20th century archaeologists worked on Avebury.
My key inspiration for the teaching resource was this illustration:
A pen illustration by Stuart Piggott, 1935. Alexander Keiller Museum Accession Number 20004597-001.
This drawing was a gift from Stuart Piggott to a friend in 1935. Many of the elements in the image are related to archaeology, such as the skull, pottery, books, maps and working tools. It reveals to some extent the daily work of archaeologists: maps represent archaeological field surveys, working tools signify archaeological excavations, skeletons and pottery are finds from excavations, and books indicate records of archaeological discoveries.
In my previous placement tasks (which I discuss in this blog), while checking photographs and creating catalogue information, I explored hundred of items in the Alexander Keiller museum collection. I observed that many of the items relate to archaeological work carried out by archaeologists at Avebury. They thoroughly documented the survey and excavation of Avebury, producing beautiful maps and plans, and drawings of the artefacts, as well as interpretive drawings.
Inspired by this exquisite drawing by Stuart Piggott, I decided that the key question for the teaching resource would be how 20th century archaeologists worked on Avebury. Using the digitised archives from the Avebury Papers as a starting point, I created a teachers’ introduction, presentation script, and powerpoint slides to introduce a range of archaeological activities by 20th-century archaeologists at Avebury including fieldwork, mapping, archaeological excavation and artefact analysis.
“How 20th Century Archaeologists Worked on Avebury”, a resource for teachers and students
In my design, the pedagogy of this resource is divided into four main parts.
The aim of the first section is to help students understand what archaeologists do. This section covers the process and purpose of fieldwork, the purpose and elements of mapping, the main stages of archaeological excavation, and the recording and drawing of artefacts.
Secondly, after students understand the basic steps of archaeological work and the methods of drawing artefacts, they are encouraged to choose artefacts that interest them and then try to draw them. Hands-on practice can give students a deeper understanding of how archaeologists observe and record artefacts.
Thirdly, after the indoor activities, students could be taken on a tour of Avebury to explain the archaeological features, historical significance and cultural background of Avebury. Previously learnt theoretical knowledge can be translated from this step into practical experience. With a site visit, students would be able to see the megaliths for themselves and interact with the landscape, touch the stones, listen to the sounds of nature, and observe the changes in light and shadow on the monuments. Students would be able to gain a fuller appreciation of Avebury from an archaeologist’s perspective.
Finally, at the end of the research and investigation of Avebury, a seminar could be organised to allow students to reflect on what aspects of the site interested them most. Students would be guided to use the Avebury archive and other resources to explore a wider range of Avebury-related topics and then freely present their findings.
Avebury artefacts
As the main teaching element involves artefact drawing, photographs of artefacts excavated at Avebury are essential. Ben Chan has provided some very clear and useful photos of the artefacts for this purpose.
A pottery bowl from Avebury.
For example this pottery bowl comes from the burials at the foot of stones of the Avebury complex. It can be observed to have a relatively curved line with outwardly sloping edges, a slightly inwardly tapering neck, widest at the shoulder, and then an inwardly sloping belly. It also has a hand-carved geometric pattern on its surface. These rich details provide very helpful examples for practicing artefact drawing.
Reflecting on the placement
The process of producing this teaching resource has also been a rewarding experience for me. My understanding of the archaeological process and the importance of the Avebury site has been enhanced through in-depth study of the Avebury archive. The designing of teaching resources has also honed my skills in educational pedagogy and curriculum development. The design of engaging and informative lesson plans requires careful consideration of the target audience (high school students), their learning needs, and the best ways to effectively communicate complex archaeological concepts.
I have become more acutely aware of the value of experiential learning and hands-on activities to attract students and develop deeper understanding. Although time was short and there was no opportunity to put this teaching resource to use, I hope that in the future it will help more young people to learn about archaeology, inspire interest in archaeology, and develop a sense of stewardship, preservation, and appreciation of archaeological sites among students and the wider community. I hope that teachers will use this resource in history or even arts classes, as archaeology as a subject is no longer available as a qualification in secondary schools. This experience not only broadened my knowledge, but also inspired me to learn more about my profession and apply it in practice.
Downloads
You may freely view, download, reuse, and remix the teaching resource below. This introduction is designed with History teachers in mind, however, it can be used by anyone. We’d love to know if you do use it, please leave comments below.
Part One: an introduction
This introduction explains how the resource was designed, and how you might use it to learn more about archaeology.
This script accompanies the presentation slides, linked below. It may be used by teachers, or read by anyone with any interest in archaeology or history.
These slides accompany the presentation script, linked above. It may be used by teachers, or read by anyone with any interest in archaeology or history.
[Editor’s note:Matt completed a student placement with the Avebury Papers as part of his masters’ programme at University of York. The team are so happy to publish one of the key outcomes of the placement here. You can more about his experience in his first blog post. Huge thanks to our volunteers who participated in the Focus Group and whose feedback will directly impact future development of Pathways. A link to Matt’s Pathway may be found at the bottom of this post]
Introduction: A Pathway into the Avebury Papers
The Avebury Papers archive houses thousands of digital items that cover the range of occupation of Avebury, as well as the history of the Avebury excavation. One of my roles as a placement student was to create a Pathway which would serve as an engaging and entertaining entry into the archive for those not familiar with Avebury and its past. In the creation of this pathway I hoped to create a concise, interesting, and accessible entryway into the Avebury Papers for those that are interested in the history of the Avebury excavation.
Denis Grant King in the drawing office at Avebury, Accession Number 20000606.
The photographs that I chose directly correlate to diary entries from Denis Grant King, who was an archaeological draughtsman working at the 1930s excavations, and the Pathway aims to tell a human story of adventure. By making these stylistic choices, both textually and through artefacts, ultimately showing one man’s trip to Avebury – from the moment he leaves home to the moment he leaves – not only gives insight into the work and life at Avebury in the 1930s, but also parallels the adventure a tourist may experience today.
The pathway was created as a ‘Prezi’ experience because Prezi offers an engaging user-experience with a variety of design choices for the author to choose from. Moreover it allows for a free-scrolling form of exploration if the user prefers to explore at their own pace, or follow the more structured slide-show.
I invited volunteers from the National Trust Avebury team to attend a focus group to give feedback on the Pathway. I ran the focus group when the Prezi was in a ‘beta’ form, ready to use but with the expectation of changes. The focus group was intended to discuss how effectively the Pathway facilitates a user’s further exploration into the Avebury Papers archive. By organising a focus group of self-selecting Avebury Papers volunteers, we were able to benefit from the knowledge of individuals who have intimate knowledge of the archives, and who are also experienced in speaking with visitors to the site.
Focus Group: Guiding Questions
Using the knowledge of Avebury Papers volunteers, I hoped to elucidate how effectively the pathway functioned. Using guiding questions, the focus group aims were to discern whether the pathway should be narrowed down and focus on particular themes in the archive; broadened to include more themes; whether more pathways should be created separate from one another; whether the pathway should function as a storytelling tool or be strictly informative; and ultimately if the pathway was deemed engaging and entertaining.
These aims were important to explore as they encompass the overall ideas of how one might explore the archive, and be motivated to explore it further. In order to explore these aims throughout the focus group, a series of guiding questions were created. These questions were:
1. What did you find most compelling or interesting about the pathway?
2. In what way Does the pathway inspire you to learn more?
a. What is working well, and what could be improved upon in this regard?
b. Did you find that the pathway kept you engaged, or were you bored by it?
3. How is the pathway representative of the archive as a whole?
a. Do you think that it is important that the pathway represents the archive as a whole, or should it be representative of only one group of artefacts?
b. Would you like to see more groupings of artefacts in this pathway, or fewer?
c. Should the pathway be longer?
4. Should the pathways act as a creative storytelling tool, or be more strictly informative? Why would one option be more effective than the other, in your opinion?
Each question was posed to explore a certain aspect of the pathway. Question one acted as an easy and thought-provoking exploration of what a volunteer felt when exploring the archive, and gave the focus group leaders a chance to see what worked for the pathway from the beginning. Question two, as well as sub point a and b, explored the idea of ‘inspiration’, and was the most lucrative of the questions that resulted in the most conversation, which will be discussed later in this report. Moreover, it helped elucidate on whether the archive was engaging, keeping the attention of the user. Question three helped shed light on the scope of the pathway and what may work best moving forward regarding how much should be in a single pathway and their functionality; this question was heavily touched upon in question 2 during open discussion with the group. Finally, question four opened the floor to the function and tone of the pathway and how that might alter how a user experiences it.
Discussion
These questions allowed for a free-flowing discussion on the nature of the pathway and their utility in the larger context of the archive.The volunteers listed are as follows: Dai Davies, volunteer 1; Andrew Snowden, volunteer 2; RP, volunteer 3; Bruce Chinery, volunteer 4; Martin, volunteer 5; Volunteer 6.
Here, I summarise the responses to each question:
Question one: This question helped elucidate what works with the Pathway. There was a consensus amongst the volunteers that the pathway was intriguing and enjoyable, and offered insight into what was held in the archive. All volunteers noted that they enjoyed the adventure-like theme of Denis Grant King and the human touch it gave to the pathway. Dai and Andrew noted that they felt they did not get a good sense of what the archive held as a whole, however. They also noted they’d have liked a way to access other topics at a click of a button – for example, hyperlinks that lead to other objects from the collection.
Question two: Andrew noted that they enjoyed the post-it style of writing, but did touch on accessibility in terms of whether the user would be using a phone, PC, tablet, etc and how that may alter how they experience the pathway. Volunteer 6 felt that it was a ‘page turner’, also commenting that they would have liked to be able to branch off into new topics similar to a ‘Wikipedia rabbit hole’. This sentiment was shared by Dai. Andrew made note that the audience should be kept in mind when creating a pathway, and Bruce and RP elaborated further that they do not think the pathway would be valuable to a researcher. In the case of this pathway, the volunteers did not specify what the ideal audience of this Pathway was.
Question 3: There were consistent comments throughout the focus group pertaining to the portion of question 3 discussing whether the pathway should be representative of the archive. A sentiment shared by all volunteers was that the Pathway does not paint the whole picture of the Avebury archive. For example, Andrew noted that Denis Grant King’s arrival to Avebury does not occur until later into the excavation, removing the beginning phases of the excavation. Martin echoed this, agreeing that artefacts that predate Denis Grant King would help add to the Pathway. Dai commented that too many pathways would raise an issue of scope, and questioned how many pathways would be feasible to address the entirety of the archive. Volunteer 6 thought that the pathway was an ideal size, a notion that Dai agreed with, and that a high-level summary at the beginning of the Pathway would have served them well to get a quick idea of what the Pathway would entail.
Question 4: Dai, Martin, and Volunteer 6 agreed that the Pathway should be a storytelling tool for the casual visitor. RP said that the Pathway should be factual and straightforward, but still engaging. Andrew noted that while some want storytelling, others want straightforward writing; all participants also noted earlier that the audience should be kept in mind (e.g. academics vs. tourists), raising the notion that there should be different ‘pathways’ for both casual visitors and academic researchers. Volunteer 6 also suggested that she would have liked to see an image of Denis Grant King, the subject of the Pathway, which volunteers agreed with.
Key Findings and Recommendations
Overall, the Pathway met most of its aims based on the focus group results. Volunteers generally agreed that the Pathway was engaging and informative, and left them wanting to explore further. The Pathway necessarily paints only a small picture of life at Avebury. With time constraints kept in mind regarding the allotted placement hours, the only changes that will be made to this particular placement will be adding the accession numbers to each photograph (a recommendation from the Project Team), as well as adding in a picture of Denis Grant King to more fully introduce him in the pathway.
Further Pathway recommendations
Volunteers shared ideas that were beyond the scope of this Pathway. This is perhaps indicative of the fact that they are very familiar with the archive as a whole. Their responses clearly indicate that further Pathways are desirable. The following are key recommendations for other Pathways that might be developed in the future:
Events such as the onset of World War 2 and its effects on the excavation
The start of investigations of Avebury (before the arrival of Denis Grant King).
By having multiple pathways based around different stories to be told and themes to be explored, visitors would have access to multiple accessible and easily digestible avenues of information, facilitating more active exploration. Moreover, while keeping scope, accessibility, and website management in mind, including hyperlinks to other related information or pathways would allow for a more seamless exploratory experience.
