Review Reports - Northwest Native Plants: A Digital Space for Paleoethnobotanical Knowledges and Biocultural Heritage

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper presents the idea and design decisions of an online platform that aims to make paleoethnobotanical resources openly available for a variety of audiences with considerations of the needs and voices of Indigenous and local communities. The authors first point out difficulties in paleoethnobotanical research due to a lack of digital reference materials, especially in the North American Northwest. Then they address the tension between open data and Indigenous data sovereignty in biocultural heritage, and demonstrate how to ethically share those resources using the Mukurtu platform.

With growing needs and recommendations for openness in scientific work, it becomes a challenge in archaeology to share data as much as possible while protecting Indigenous rights and interests. Overall, this paper shows a helpful and practical example of an approach to open access through an online digital database based on Indigenous data sovereignty. Thus, I would recommend acceptance of the paper with some minor revisions addressed below that might help to make the manuscript clearer.

1) In the second section, in addition to the movement of data sovereignty, it would be good to also mention and cite the CARE principles in a few sentences since they are relevant. That can give readers more contexts about the background, and some efforts have been made globally to promote equitable participation in data governance and sharing. Also, how their work connects to CARE/FAIR principles or how they position their work in the spectrum of openness might be worthwhile to state clearly. The citation is:

Carroll, S.R., Garba, I., Figueroa-Rodríguez, O.L., Holbrook, J., Lovett, R., Materechera, S., Parsons, M., Raseroka, K., Rodriguez-Lonebear, D., Rowe, R., Sara, R., Walker, J.D., Anderson, J. and Hudson, M., 2020. The CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance. Data Science Journal, 19(1), p.43. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-043

2) I have checked the Mukurtu platform and I can see students and researchers working on paleoethnobotany will benefit a lot from the online database through shared information and images. However, as the authors mention, there is specific access to data according to different digital communities and cultural protocols. It would be helpful to state the restrictions to resources if logging as a Paleoethnobotanist. For example, if Paleoethnobotanists can access the whole documented plant species or just parts of them since some biocultural heritage information only shared among Indigenous communities? Because one important point of this paper is paleoethnobotanical data sharing, it might be necessary to give more details about the range of data that paleoethnobotanical users can view in the platform.

3) I have trouble understanding the differences between “General Access” and “Paleoethnobotanists” in Figure 2, and connecting them to texts in the platform. For example, is “summary of common uses” in Figure 2 the same as “summary” on the website? If so, then what is the difference between “summary of common uses” and “various names” in Figure 2 that seems both refer to the same thing. I think the figure will be clearer if they can use the exact keywords on the website, such as “Description”, “Cultural Narrative”, or “Location Description”. Also, in the platform, I can see users logging in as Paleoethnobotanists can still see the information of “outdoor plant identification tips” (“Description” on the website I guess) as general access users can see, so the two circles in Figure 2 are more like one circle inside another one, instead of two circles with an intersection.

4) It is a very interesting and relevant idea to use “rhizomes” to describe Mukertu’s organizational structure. The authors think it captures the non-hierarchical feature of Mukertu that emphasizes relations and bindings between communities, cultural protocols, and categories. However, I think the underlying rule of this structure to some extent is still a top-down approach since the access to what content and resources are decided by administrators and tribal collaborators. In this system, it seems that the access to online resources for the general public is the most restricted. It is understandable since the platform is designed based on Indigenous data sovereignty, but it might be better to just focus on or emphasize the collaborative relationship between archaeologists and Indigenous communities.

5) The authors' database is important because enables reproducibility of research, e.g. Marwick 2017. This is increasingly valued by archaeologists. This notable detail should be acknowledged by the authors in the text because it may help to inspire others to adopt a similar approach. The full citation is:

Marwick, B. 2017 Computational reproducibility in archaeological research: Basic principles and a case study of their implementation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 24(2), 424-450.

In summary, I think this manuscript highlights a useful and practical framework to meet the needs for open access to biocultural heritage with considerations of Indigenous voices and transitional values. I look forward to seeing this in print.

Author Response

Reviewer #1: This paper presents the idea and design decisions of an online platform that aims to make paleoethnobotanical resources openly available for a variety of audiences with considerations of the needs and voices of Indigenous and local communities. The authors first point out difficulties in paleoethnobotanical research due to a lack of digital reference materials, especially in the North American Northwest. Then they address the tension between open data and Indigenous data sovereignty in biocultural heritage, and demonstrate how to ethically share those resources using the Mukurtu platform.

Thank you for that citation and suggestion – sincerely appreciate it! We added two paragraphs summarizing the CARE and OCAP principles within Indigenous data stewardship in lines 192-215. We further reference those guidelines in several places throughout the manuscript, as well as the Research Data Alliance International Indigenous Data Sovereignty Interest Group online statement and a paper by Carroll with 2021 reflections on CARE and FAIR. We’ve also added small references to the FAIR, CARE, and OCAP principles, highlighting how Mukurtu articulates with those guidelines. For example, on lines 316-317: “These categories help users to find and access ethnobotanical heritage by narrowing down browsing time and searches.”

In our paragraph on cultural protocols in section 3.1 we cover how users belonging to the paleoethnobotanical practitioner cultural protocol have access to additional reference images and criteria. We expanded this section to more explicitly show how paleoethnobotanists can see additional images, and that these images have associated metadata (descriptions, keywords) that facilitate identifications and searches. We also made sure that this was clear within section 3.2 paleoethnobotanical considerations, and added a few more points on how this protocol works for members.

We added further description in both manuscript locations on community records, which allow for different versions of digital heritage items across communities and protocols. Each ethnobotanical digital heritage item has a separate paleoethnobotanical community record for that protocol. While these are not currently any different than the general access protocol items (the primary difference is additional search keywords), they can be modified by practitioners or commented upon, which are then only visible to members of that protocol.

We also edited the website itself to include a FAQ page and several links to the paleoethnobotany protocol guidelines to make the website more user-friendly.

Thank you for commenting on this figure. We had to “stuff” some of our digital heritage needs into the metadata fields that currently exist for Mukurtu as a whole. Perhaps we can work with the Mukurtu support team to change these metadata fields in the future to more accurately reflect these forms of ethnobotanical heritage.

For the figure, we decided not to completely change the text to the description or cultural narrative fields, but rather edited the text to be a bit more specific (i.e., common names, field identification tips, summary of uses). I think if we’d done both (i.e., Summary/common names) the figure would have been too “busy.” The figure was also edited, per your suggestion, to a circle within a circle.

We also edited the text describing these relationships to read: “These protocols need not be exclusive; rather we think of them as intersecting circles or Venn diagrams in which membership and access overlap across social circles…” to reflect these edits.

Good points – yes, there still is an overlying hierarchical structure as we visualized in Figure 1. We tightened up the language in that paragraph to suggest that the rhizome metaphor be applied to digital heritage items specifically. We also edited the third sentence of that paragraph to read: “This relational model emphasizes interdependence and connections, while access is determined by the communities and cultural protocols overlaying digital heritage items and categories.”

Marwick, B. 2017 Computational reproducibility in archaeological research: Basic principles and a case study of their implementation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 24(2), 424-450.

We included references to Dr. Marwick’s work in our open access discussion and in references to paleoethnobotanical reproducibility.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The recent movement towards Indigenous data sovereignty has largely focused on data related to human biology and artifact studies. In this paper, the authors make the case for facilitating an Indigenous data sovereignty for paleoethnobotanical data, and for mediating the issues of access and control through the use of the Mukurtu content management system. Mukurtu’s current use as a sharing resource for Indigenous knowledge and cultural materials would require little modification to be repurposed for managing biocultural and paleoethnobotanical data

The authors make a good case for this repurposing, considering and discussing current ethical issues of power, cost, and access relating to paleoethnobotanical data, and to shared ethnobotany resources in general. Their case for transferring existing data to Mukurtu, and for creating communities of stakeholders within the platform would alleviate some of these ethical issues. The article could stand for a more robust discussion of the issues surrounding digital access though, as it is not always the great equalizer that it is touted to be. Though it removes cost barriers for users, it assumes a level of technological access and comfort of use that is not universal, and that can be alienating.

The largest ethical concern with this effort is the degree to which it is wanted by Indigenous peoples themselves. The authors of this piece noted in lines 246-249 that they ‘chose to keep [their] communities simple and broad rather than use the names of a specific community; this decision was made to avoid inadvertently highlighting or excluding any tribe or Indigenous group…’ It is unclear through the text how community consultation and consultation with Indigenous groups factored practically into this process. While the models illustrated in figures 1 and 2 show how the practice could work in Mukurtu, there is no clear sense of what tribal involvement went into choosing this organizational structure. If there was no direct tribal or Indigenous participation in this design process, that is an ethical oversight that needs correcting. If there was direct participation, it needs to be more clearly referenced and highlighted in the text.

Overall, this paper contributes positively to the growing awareness (and support) of Indigenous data sovereignty by the academic and archaeological communities. It shows what an open source and open access digital archaeology can be, and how it can support stakeholder desires and research endeavors.

Author Response

Reviewer #2: The recent movement towards Indigenous data sovereignty has largely focused on data related to human biology and artifact studies. In this paper, the authors make the case for facilitating an Indigenous data sovereignty for paleoethnobotanical data, and for mediating the issues of access and control through the use of the Mukurtu content management system. Mukurtu’s current use as a sharing resource for Indigenous knowledge and cultural materials would require little modification to be repurposed for managing biocultural and paleoethnobotanical data.

Thanks for pointing this out – yes technology and internet access is a significant barrier, and we should have considered this in the text, particularly in light of COVID-19. We substantially expanded our paragraph on mobile Mukurtu and the implementation of languages by bringing in a discussion on the digital divide in rural Indigenous communities. This digital divide is also referenced in our Open Access discussion where we bring up the economic barriers, the training barriers, and lack of internet/mobile data availability in rural locations.

We also added discussion on Open Access frameworks for guiding data stewardship and governance as well as two paragraphs on the CARE, FAIR, and OCAP principles for Indigenous data per Reviewer 1’s comments.

Thank you for bringing up these concerns. Our design decision was to keep the paleoethnobotanical content somewhat exclusive (membership to the cultural protocol required) was informed by informal conversations with the lead author’s (MC) collaborators at the Kalispel Tribe. We reference those conversations in the Paleoethnobotanical considerations section, specifically lines 372-374. This sentence was edited to be more explicit, now reading: “While this process does often take several days as it must pass through website administrators, it was a decision made in consultation with tribal collaborators from the Kalispel Tribe, who also requested that there be some form of safeguard over that material.” We modified our acknowledgements to thank those individuals for expressing their wishes.

This was the only consultation that was completed; however as we state in lines 286-288, the beauty of working with Mukurtu is that it can always be “edited in the future to reflect changing user needs.” Right now we have only had informal conversations with stakeholders and communities through smaller presentations, but we are hoping this publication and other announcements will help to expand the network, and we can continue to adapt the website to what Indigenous people want, or leave it alone if it ends up being just paleobotanists using the space. We also have a workshop set for the spring where we hope to generate additional feedback.

Additionally, section 3.0 details how the systems was initially developed with and for the Warumungu community in Australia and has since been expanded to accommodate a wide range of epistemologies and worldviews. We added a sentence at the end of this paragraph to highlight that the beta version of Mukurtu was designed and built with interior Northwest tribal communities. Our work is building on that legacy of collaboration, and we hope to continue to modify our website in the future to address any needs. We also have a workshop upcoming this spring, where we can identify what does and does not work for users.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper presents the process and design decisions behind creating an online database for ethnobotanical knowledge and associated paleoethnobotanical data, using a content management system designed to foreground Indigenous and local perspectives.

However, the major concerns are:

There is no technical novelty in the paper, and the entire paper is like a descriptive statement;
There is no evaluation for the method in the paper.
What datasets are used is not clear.

Author Response

Reviewer #3: This paper presents the process and design decisions behind creating an online database for ethnobotanical knowledge and associated paleoethnobotanical data, using a content management system designed to foreground Indigenous and local perspectives.

However, the major concerns are:

There is no technical novelty in the paper, and the entire paper is like a descriptive statement;

In our introduction we are open that the paper is meant to be a descriptive piece in which we suggest that this content management system be considered by cultural resource and heritage practitioners. Our work demonstrates the potential of adapting Mukurtu to different forms of digital heritage, and we chose to offer our experiences as a case study of this process. It was not meant to be a traditional scientific study with a hypothesis or explanation of a new technology, but rather adapting software to meet different needs.

Throughout we added additional analytical commentary to highlight the impacts and relevance of our design decisions on the communities we work with.

There is no evaluation for the method in the paper.

You are correct that this is not explicitly stated, though our plans for evaluating website use is referenced twice, for example in lines 307-310: “If the database sees additional stakeholder buy-in, new protocols can be created to fit user needs and allow various forms of access for members of specific communities (i.e., tribal members, elders, two-spirits, conservationists, non-Indigenous ethnobotanical practitioners, etc.).”

We clarified in the final section that we will look at the number of users, their online activities, and specific requests to determine additional communities, protocols, digital heritage, and records. We have an upcoming workshop set for this spring where we will also collect feedback from various communities.

Furthermore, in the manuscript we are “evaluating” Mukurtu as a content management system for a more diverse array of digital heritage than was initially conceived. Our website demonstrates that this platform does indeed have the structural capability of mediating between diverse groups of users and content, while also highlighting some of the limitations (i.e., georeferencing is limited to individual points rather than user-generated shapefiles). Our design decisions descriptions provide a case study of sorts.

What datasets are used is not clear.

We state in section 4 that our paleoethnobotanical reference criteria are drawn from two projects:

Diedrich, M. Pacific Northwest Paleobotany: Native Seeds and the Creation of a Comparative Library. Archaeology in Washington 2008, 14, 21-35.
Carney, M.; d’Alpoim Guedes, J. Paleoethnobotanical identification criteria for bulbs of the North American Northwest. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 2021, doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-020-00808-9.

We further explain that this project is an ongoing group effort in which we generate the identification criteria for macrobotanical and microbotanical analyses in the greater Northwest region, as this is a place that has seen somewhat less academic interest.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf