A quick word on what this is, since "journal" can mean a few things. This is not an academic journal, peer reviewed and final. It is not quite a personal diary either. Think of it as a set of field notes, but of my own making: honest write-ups of how this project actually comes together, written while it is happening rather than tidied up years later. Some posts walk through a workflow or a tool I am learning. Some work through a question about Roman houses. All of them are written in real time, with the false starts left in, because the process is part of the story.
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How to read a Roman house plan
A floor plan looks like a technical drawing, but it is one of the most readable documents archaeology produces. Start at the door, find the courtyard, count the doorways, follow the floors. Then ask who the plan will not show...
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The people who left no words behind
Most of history was written by a powerful few. Archaeology is how we hear from everyone else. This is why I became an archaeologist, and why I read houses in particular.
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What used to take me months took an afternoon with AI
A confession. I built large parts of this website with AI, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Here is what it actually did, where I draw the line, why that line matters, and why I think resisting this...
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Confessions of a first-time GIS user: part two
Part one ended with the plans anchored and the map ready to be drawn on. This is the part where I actually draw, house by house, turning years of archival notes into polygons and lines, and making a hundred small...
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On acting your way to readiness
I used to think I needed everything to be perfect before I could start, so I made lists, I researched, I read, and I called it preparation. This is the honest version of how I learned that readiness does not...
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Confessions of a first-time GIS user: part one
This is my first time ever properly using GIS software. There, I said it. What follows is the honest version of how a textual, archival, deeply non-spatial researcher got friendly with QGIS, starting not with the software at all but...