• Purpose of the project and how it has developed during the project period
The purpose of the project according to the project plan was to make the material from the Alvastra pile dwelling digitally accessible, facilitating further research into this archaeological site. The material consists partly of objects recovered during archaeological excavations and partly of the documentation of the excavations. The objects were registered in a database available online via the homepage of the Swedish History Museum (SHM) and the documentary material can be reached via a digital platform also accessed from the homepage of SHM. The primary focus group was the archaeological community, both nationally and internationally. For this reason, the texts produced within the project were written in English. Initially focus was placed on the later excavations of the site (directed by Mats P. Malmer of Stockholm University 1976-1980) since these excavations were totally unpublished. As the project progressed it became more and more clear that it was necessary to include the older excavations (directed by Otto Frödin 1909-1930). Anyone interested in conducting research into the site will need to consider the site as a whole. The later excavations were covered more comprehensively but the older excavations were also included in the database and the research platform.
• The project results and a discussion about them
Databases
Around 82% of the assemblage from the earlier excavations is available in digitized form, comprising around 10 224 records. It is now only the following categories that remain to be fully registered: unworked stone and organic material (i.e. wood samples, hazelnuts, macrofossils, apples, charcoal and other samples). These categories comprise an estimated 18% of the total assemblage. This collection also contains 2233 photographs which means that around 21% of the total assemblage is documented photographically. All the material from the later excavations has been registered in the museum database (12481 records). Around 28% of this material is documented with photographs – 3514 photographs.
Research platform
The research platform, launched in the autumn of 2019, consists of six sections. The first, Home Page, introduces the platform and the project which has led to it. It explains the aims and objectives of the platform and it also features a long list of acknowledgements.
In the second section, the Site, Alvastra pile dwelling is presented and contextualised in its local, national and European background.
The third section, Excavation Reports and Earlier Research, contains an introduction to scanned unpublished excavation reports in manuscript form and scanned published research on the pile dwelling. In this section there is also a list of the films made during the later excavation of the site. All these films have been digitized within the framework of the project and seven are available on the platform itself.
Section four is entitled Field Documentation and it is here that the main sources for research into the pile dwelling are available in digitized form. Most of these sources derive from the later excavations. They consist of 20 field diaries, seven ledgers of all the samples (soil, charcoal, wood, etc) taken, two ledgers describing the more than 800 wooden piles recovered and seven lists of all the documentary photographs taken. The photographs themselves have been scanned and are also available in this section. Approximately 8130 images, both colour and black/white, scanned within the present project, document the excavation. Field documentation also contains 453 field drawings made accessible digitally on this site. 40% of these have been scanned in the present project.
It has not been possible to digitize all the documentation of the older excavations. This has been listed on the platform and a small portion has been digitized. Around 200 photographs had been previously scanned by Hans Browall. The archives which hold these images (Antiquarian-Topographical Archives, ATA) has granted copyright and they are now available on the platform. 153 field drawings have been scanned within the present project in order to facilitate GIS applications (see below, section 6). Two plans showing the wooden platform and rows of piles in the trench excavated in 1909-1930 have been photographed within the project and are available on the platform.
The archaeological assemblages from the later excavations registered in the project have been summarised in section five, Archaeological Materials. For the first time an overview of all that was found is published. The material is presented category by category. Summarising tables from the database are made available. Comparisons are made with the assemblages found during the earlier excavations and tables of the material from the earlier excavations registered in the database are presented.
Digital resources are collected in section six. Blog posts are summarised. 3-D scannings of some artefacts from the site can be seen here. The database is presented. Here the 10 published and 6 unpublished texts are available. Two of the unpublished texts have been produced within the project. An administrative report for the later excavations was submitted to the National Heritage Board in 2018 (Browall & Taffinder 2018). This secured the judicial status of the archaeological collections; they remained in the ownership of the state. The project also conducted an indoor excavation of a peat block which had been stored at the Swedish History Museum since the end of the earlier excavations. A report of this excavation is found in section six. Disr Productions has produced GIS applications which are also available here.
• Unforeseen technical and methodological problems
Alvastra pile dwelling, an archaeological resource has been very much an infrastructure project. The aim has been to make resources for research available digitally, i.e. to help other people to conduct research. As soon as members of the project have shown interest in questions of research, our steering group has reminded us that our job is to create infrastructure for research and not to conduct research ourselves. This has been a source of frustration among the members of the project. Even if the creation of infrastructure is by some seen as research in itself, other research into questions related to prehistoric society should not be so rigidly separated from the creation of databases and the scanning of excavation documentation.
It has not been possible to acquire copyright for one of the key studies already published on the pile dwelling of Alvastra (Browall, H., 2011. Alvastra pålbyggnad, 1909–1930 års utgrävningar. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien. Stockholm.). This study is a comprehensive publication of the earlier excavations at the site. The OCR-scanning of this book would have greatly enhanced the information presented on the research platform which is more focussed on the later excavations. When it became clear that copyright would not be granted, it became necessary to produce more information about the early excavations in order to make the presentation on the platform more balanced.
Database problems at the Swedish History Museum have complicated our work. While we managed to complete the main registration work before a major change in the database used by the museum occurred, other problems have been caused by the change. The most serious is that the public version of the database has not be updated since August 2018. This means that new information entered into the internal database since then is not visible for the external user.
• The work's integration into the agency/organisation and how the work will be communicated
The work of the project has already been communicated to the general public (a lecture at the Swedish History Museum and a lecture at the University of Stockholm in 2016), to the scientific community within Sweden (the Stone Age network meeting in Norrköping 2016 and the Stone Age network of the Archaeologists in Lund and Mölndal 2016 and 2017) and to the scientific community internationally (conferences in Kiel 2015 and in Bradford 2016). When the project is now completed it will be communicated in all three forums once again. On 4 October 2019 the research platform will be shown at an event called Experten berättar, a programme of lectures for the general public at the Swedish History Museum. At the meeting of European Association of Archaeologists in Bern, Switzerland, from 4 to 8 September 2019 the research platform will be communicated at a session specially devoted to pile dwellings in a European perspective. An official launching of the platform is being planned for 29-30 January 2020. We have invited the Stone Age archaeologists of Sweden to this event where the new research portal will be demonstrated and discussions on how the portal can enhance further research will be discussed. We have invited 10 national and international specialists on Stone Age wetlands or Neolithic studies to lead these discussions.
Further development of the platform after its launching will be the responsibility of two departments at the Swedish History Museum. The Department of Archaeological Collections will be in charge of the content of the platform while the Department of Communication and Digitization will deal with technical questions and communication issues.
• New research questions generated through the project
For the first time almost the entire assemblage from this site is available digitally. This should give rise to many new research questions.
Hinders, N. 2017. Middle Neolithic pottery decoration tools from Alvastra pile dwelling. Fornvännen 112:122-127. Stockholm. http://kulturarvsdata.se/raa/fornvannen/html/2017_122.
This is a publication, not written within the project, but it is a direct result of work within the project by a project member.

• Any publications and links to own websites.
http://alvastrapiledwelling.historiska.se/
46 blog posts have been published at the above address. Most have been written by project members but two have been written by two different guest writers. All have been written in English and advertised sometimes on the Facebook page of the Swedish History Museum or on personal Facebook pages.
http://historiska.se/Alvastra
This is the address of the research platform which is accessible via the home page of the Swedish History Museum.