This paper describes 'Archaeotools', a major e-Science project in archaeology. The aim of the project is to use faceted classification and natural language processing to create an advanced infrastructure for archaeological research. The project aims to integrate over 1!10 6 structured database records referring to archaeological sites and monuments in the UK, with information extracted from semi-structured grey literature reports, and unstructured antiquarian journal accounts, in a single faceted browser interface. The project has illuminated the variable level of vocabulary control and standardization that currently exists within national and local monument inventories. Nonetheless, it has demonstrated that the relatively well-defined ontologies and thesauri that exist in archaeology mean that a high level of success can be achieved using information extraction techniques. This has great potential for unlocking and making accessible the information held in grey literature and antiquarian accounts, and has lessons for allied disciplines.

Abstract

The cemetery at Heath Wood, Ingleby, Derbyshire, is the only known Scandinavian cremation cemetery in the British Isles. It comprises fifty-nine barrows, of which about one-third have been excavated on previous occasions, although earlier excavators concluded that some were empty cenotaph mounds. From 1998 to 2000 three barrows were examined. Our investigations have suggested that each of the barrows contained a burial, although not all contain evidence of a pyre. A full report of the 1998–2000 excavations is provided, alongside a summary of the earlier finds. The relationship of Heath Wood to the neighbouring site at Repton is examined, in order to understand its significance for the Scandinavian settlement of the Danelaw. It is concluded that Heath Wood may have been a war cemetery of the Viking Great Army of AD 873–8.

One of the major problems of British prehistory has been the contrast between the mass of Late Bronze Age metalwork and the rarity of contemporary settlements. The Berkshire river gravels are one area in which a high proportion of bronze objects is recorded in apparent isolation. With the increasing recognition of Late Bronze Age pottery, however, it has been possible to identify domestic finds of this period among the artefacts from gravel pits around Reading. Part of the gap in the settlement record has also been closed by the excavation of two sites on the Berkshire Downs, the earthwork enclosure at Rams Hill, and an open site at Beedon Manor Farm (Bradley and Ellison 1975; Richards in press). But it was not until 1974 that a Bronze Age settlement on the gravels could be examined in situ, and since the formation of the Berkshire Archaeological Unit a series of five sites have been sampled or more extensively investigated. This paper is concerned with the two most extensive sites, those at Aldermaston Wharf and Knight's Farm, Burghfield, but will make cross reference to the other work where necessary, in particular to a more recently recorded site at Pingewood.It is now clear why this evidence was so difficult to find. The pottery is extremely friable and would not survive on the surface; and the gravel sites contain very few worked flints. The main features are small pits under 50 cm deep, and for this reason the sites cannot be detected from the air; and, even if they could be recognized, there would be nothing to distinguish them from Iron Age open sites, like those in the Upper Thames Basin.