If you have found the ArchAtlas website interesting or useful for research or teaching, would you be willing to make a small contribution to help us maintain and develop it further? We would like to be able to greatly increase the number and geographical range of sites on the digital atlas (http://www.archatlas.dept.shef.ac.uk/atlas/atlas.php) and add information relating to these, and eventually to develop an explanatory section on prehistoric 'culture' names which will show their spatial and chronological dimensions and examples of typical artefact assemblages. We would also like to continue to publish 'visual essays', both commissioned and unsolicited, on ArchAtlas Journal (http://www.archatlas.dept.shef.ac.uk/journal/journal.php).

ArchAtlas is a web-orientated archaeological mapping project, designed to be of use both for research and teaching purposes.  It was founded by the late Prof. Andrew Sherratt and has been hosted by the Department of Archaeology in Sheffield since 2005.  The electronic journal (ArchAtlas Journal) publishes 'visual essays' on a wide range of archaeological problems and themes, particularly ones in which spatial processes are important.  Examples of such themes are the spread of farming, the formation of trade contacts, the growth of urban systems.  Another aspect of the website is a digital archaeological atlas, in which we would like eventually to include information about environments, cultures and chronologies as well as sites themselves.  The website also explores different ways of visualising sites, for example at different scales, within their wider environmental contexts, within the contexts of route networks, or as panoramas.

ArchAtlas makes all of its content freely available to everyone, and we would like to maintain this open-access model.  The website is currently maintained by a very small, part-time, unpaid team of two.  We need to raise funds to develop ArchAtlas further, which will mean purchasing some new dedicated equipment and funding paid research assistance in digital mapping, web development and database development. We aim, in particular, to greatly increase the number and geographical range of sites on the digital atlas (all co-ordinates have to be individually verified first for accuracy), and to increase the amounts of information relating to these.  In the near future, we would also like to add a section containing a glossary of prehistoric 'culture' names, displayed in both spatial and time dimensions and linked to typical artefact assemblages.

For more information please see: http://www.archatlas.dept.shef.ac.uk/Home.php