ABSTRACT

This chapter delves into the making of archaeological knowledge from the perspective of expectations placed on the documentation produced as a part of archaeological work. The phraseology of archival policy texts relating to the use of digital formats has shifted from encouragement to requirement. At the same time, the requirements on the delivery of analogue formats has not decreased but remains constant. There is a striking tension between encouraging archaeologists to use new methods and creating and organising documentation material in such a state that it can be preserved (in a designated archive). We call this archivability and argue the archivability of documentation material constitutes a pivotal threshold for documentation in archaeology. A major issue is that archaeologists’ resources and methodological imagination to create documentation exceeds, by far, what the archival institutions are capable of accepting. At the same time, the archaeologists in this study are keen on inquiring into the delivery options for official archives and to discriminate on the best delivery method possible. However, the de facto delivery method is a combination of which format(s) the archive demands (and can receive) and the way that the archaeologist finds to be reasonable to deliver these format(s).