Internet Archaeol 15. Kathryn Denning. Conclusion

6.0 Conclusion?

'Conclusion' is quite an overstatement here. The subheading your eyes were drawn to is just one of those formal navigational signifiers without which people can become disorientated, and which is therefore traditionally included even when there is little actual content left to impart.

This is my proposal: As archaeologists continue using the WWW to reach their public, we need: (a) syntheses which distill relevant knowledge about how people read online and use websites; and (b) best practice guidelines developed by applying this knowledge to the challenges of archaeological writing for a general audience. I believe this can only be achieved through a great deal of questioning, broad consultation, and by sharing with each other our usually informal knowledge about successes and failures in online public archaeology.

As yet, I have no firm suggestions about what those best practices might be, only the certainty that there is much to learn, consider, do, and discuss. Thus, the only sense in which this paper concludes is in the sense of having a last word. That word is … yours.