Introduction §
This appendix provides ready-to-use curricula for teaching Archaeobytology in three contexts:
- Academic Degrees: Full-semester courses for the 101 (Theory), 200 (Methods), and 300 (Systems) levels.
- Professional Development: A 2-day intensive workshop for librarians and archivists.
- Interdisciplinary Modules: A 2-week “injection” unit for Computer Science or History departments.
Model 1: The Undergraduate Survey (ARCH 101) §
Title: Introduction to Archaeobytology: Digital Culture and the Art of Resistance
Duration: 15 Weeks
Prerequisites: None
Course Description: What happens when digital platforms die? This course introduces students to the study of “murdered” digital culture. We move beyond the “digital dualism” that separates the “real” from the “virtual” to understand digital artifacts as material objects subject to decay, destruction, and preservation. Students will learn to classify artifacts using the Archaeobyte Taxonomy and evaluate the power structures of the digital world through the Three Pillars of Sovereignty.
Learning Objectives:
- Taxonomy: Classify artifacts as Vivibytes, Umbrabytes, or Petribytes.
- Ethics: Apply the “Custodial Filter” to preservation decisions.
- Theory: Analyze platforms using the Declaration/Connection/Ground framework.
- Practice: Conduct a basic “Digital Life Audit” of personal data.
Weekly Outline:
- Weeks 1–3: Foundations. The history of platform death (GeoCities to Vine). Defining the Archaeobyte.
- Weeks 4–6: Theory. The Three Pillars of Sovereignty. The Archive vs. The Anvil.
- Weeks 7–10: Excavation. Introduction to the Wayback Machine and basic scraping concepts.
- Weeks 11–13: Ethics. Privacy, consent, and the “Right to be Forgotten.”
- Weeks 14–15: The Future. Building sovereign alternatives.
Key Assignment: The Platform Autopsy
Students select a dead platform (e.g., Google Reader, Vine) and write a 2,000-word “Coroner’s Report” analyzing its cause of death, the community displacement, and the surviving fossil record.
Model 2: The Methodological Seminar (ARCH 200) §
Title: Digital Preservation Methods: Excavation, Forensics, and Triage
Duration: 15 Weeks (Lab/Seminar Hybrid)
Prerequisites: ARCH 101 or CS 101
Course Description: This is a hands-on technical course. Students transition from studying digital death to preventing it. We focus on the “Rescue Phase”—the critical window between a platform’s shutdown announcement and its deletion. Students will learn command-line scraping, metadata extraction, and forensic disk imaging.
Technical Stack:
- Command Line: Wget, Youtube-dl, ffmpeg.
- Forensics: The Sleuth Kit (TSK), ExifTool.
- Emulation: Ruffle, DOSBox.
Weekly Outline:
- Weeks 1–4: Reconnaissance. Mapping site architecture and identifying hidden assets.
- Weeks 5–8: Extraction. Wget scripting, API interaction, and WARC file generation.
- Weeks 9–12: Forensics. Recovering data from “bit-rotted” formats and corrupted media.
- Weeks 13–15: Triage. Running “Fire Drill” simulations where students must prioritize data under time constraints.
Key Assignment: The Rescue Simulation
A 48-hour take-home exam. Students are given a “dying” test server (hosted by the instructor) scheduled to auto-delete in 48 hours. They must scrape, validate, and package the site’s content before the clock runs out.
Model 3: The Graduate Capstone (ARCH 300) §
Title: Institution Building and Strategic Infrastructure
Duration: 15 Weeks
Prerequisites: ARCH 200
Course Description: How do we build structures that last 50 years? This graduate seminar shifts from the individual practitioner to the institutional level. Students study the failures of previous preservation attempts (the “Heroic Founder” problem, funding collapses) and design sustainable organizations—Archives, Foundries, and Seed Banks—that can endure.
Learning Objectives:
- Design: Create governance models based on Ostrom’s Principles for the Commons.
- Economics: Develop business models for “Sovereign Foundries” (non-extractive tech).
- Strategy: Map a 20-year “Movement Building” strategy for a specific digital community.
Module Structure:
- Module 1: The Institutional Void. Diagnosing why current archives fail.
- Module 2: The Business of the Archive. Designing non-profit and hybrid revenue models.
- Module 3: The Seed Bank. Designing distributed/federated governance (LOCKSS).
- Module 4: The Haunted Forest. Curating memory institutions for the public.
- Module 5: The Anvil. Building tools for the post-platform future.
Key Assignment: The Institutional Prospectus
Students produce a 30-page “Launch Deck” for a new institution (e.g., “The Museum of Flash Games” or “The Decentralized Social Archive”), including bylaws, 10-year budget, and technical architecture.
Model 4: The Community Workshop (Non-Academic) §
Title: Digital Self-Defense: A Weekend Intensive
Duration: 2 Days (12 Hours)
Audience: Community archivists, activists, librarians, and the general public.
Goal: Democratize Archaeobytology skills for immediate community use.
Day 1: The Archive (Defense)
- Morning (Theory): “Why Your Data is Disappearing.” Understanding platform terms of service and the lifecycle of data.
- Afternoon (Practice): “The Personal Rescue.” Participants bring their own laptops and perform a “Takeout” of their data from Google/Facebook/Twitter. We teach them how to verify, store, and organize these dumps so they are readable without the platform.
Day 2: The Anvil (Offense)
- Morning (Theory): “Sovereignty 101.” Buying a domain name, understanding DNS, and the difference between “renting” and “owning” digital ground.
- Afternoon (Practice): “Planting the Flag.” Every participant leaves with a personal website or digital garden running on their own domain, independent of social media silos.
Model 5: The “Trojan Horse” Module (Interdisciplinary) §
Title: The Materiality of the Internet
Duration: 2 Weeks (Insertable into History, Media Studies, or CS syllabi)
Goal: Plant the seeds of Archaeobytology in established disciplines.
Week 1: Excavating the Recent Past
- Reading: Chapter 2 (Taxonomy) and Chapter 6 (The Warning of Rented Land).
- Activity: “Digital Stratigraphy.” Students look at a single website (e.g., the White House site) via the Wayback Machine across 10 years and map the changing layers of technology and ideology.
Week 2: The Ethics of Memory
- Reading: Chapter 9 (The Custodial Filter).
- Activity: “The Triage Committee.” The class is presented with a hypothetical server drive from a defunct extremist forum. They must debate and vote on whether to destroy it, seal it, or publish it, using the Custodial Filter framework.