◊ Dear Microburins

Friend and archaeologist Robert M Chapple has spent the last few years cataloging radiocarbon and dendrochronological dates for Ireland. The latest release has geo-referencing and visualisation for 8288 radiocarbon and 313 dendro dates, including the Mesolithic period. This is a brilliant and agile resource for researchers of any persuasion:

“At the most general level, I hope that it can act as a means of engaging a large portion of the non-specialist audience who have an interest in Irish archaeology and heritage. Such an audience may find the intricacies of both the modern excavation process and radiocarbon dating to be somewhat complex and off-putting. I hope that this visualisation can be used to connect these groups to the scientific excavations and dating results that have been carried out within their own areas and act as further spurs for interest and engagement.”

In his blog this week, Robert talks to the development rationale, process, software, data sources and user options. The data visualisation is hosted on Tableau public servers and can be viewed directly there, or through the embedded version at the end of his blog post.

♦ Spence