Transcribe record sheets of British Neolithic stone axes

Transcribing record sheets containing information about British Neolithic stone axes

This project contains 1825 record sheets, each relating to a specific Neolithic axe from Britain, from museum collections. These handwritten record sheets were created and compiled by Mike Pitts in the 1970s and 1980s, and were originally hosted on the Implement Petrology Group's website until recently. They contain measurements as well as other information and notes about the axes.

The aim of this project is to transcribe all of the information in these record sheets so the wealth of numerical data relating to axe measurements can be used in multivariate statistical analyses to see if the dimensions of the axes can form them into meaningful groups, which will form part of the creator of this MicroPasts project's MSc dissertation. Secondly, this will preserve the data-set for the future, and create the possibility for future analyses to be undertaken with this data.

How to transcribe the record sheets

Transcription of these record sheets should be relatively easy, but may take a longer or shorter amount of time depending on how complete the sheet is. The variable names were coined by Mike Pitts and a list of definitions has been included in the tutorial for clarity. Please try to copy the text as closely as possible, and use square brackets with an ellipsis between (like this: [...]) if you are unsure about a word/number/phrase etc in any part of your transcription. This is so that they can be found and checked later on.

The order of the variable names on each sheet may vary, and some variables may have been missed out in some of the sheets, so please be aware of this when filling out the form with your transcription so that you are filling out the correct variable with the correct data. If you notice that the sheet you are transcribing does not have all of the variables present in the transcription form, please just leave them and fill out the ones that are applicable to that image.

If in any doubt, please check the tutorial.

Thank you for reading :)

This project is on behalf of: