ABSTRACT:Information systems play an important role in historical research as well as in heritage documentation. As part of a joint research project of the German Archaeological Institute, the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus and the Dresden University of Applied Sciences a web-based documentation system is currently being developed, which can easily be adapted to the needs of different projects with individual scientific concepts, methods and questions. Based on open source and standardized technologies it will focus on open and well-documented interfaces to ease the dissemination and re-use of its content via web-services and to communicate with desktop applications for further evaluation and analysis. Core of the system is a generic data model that represents a wide range of topics and methods of archaeological work. By the provision of a concerted amount of initial themes and attributes a cross project analysis of research data will be possible. The development of enhanced search and retrieval functionalities will simplify the processing and handling of large heterogeneous data sets. To achieve a high degree of interoperability with existing external data, systems and applications, standardized interfaces will be integrated. The analysis of spatial data shall be possible through the integration of web-based GIS functions. As an extension to this, customized functions for storage, processing and provision of 3D geo data are being developed. As part of the contribution system requirements and concepts will be presented and discussed. A particular focus will be on introducing the generic data model and the derived database schema. The research work on enhanced search and retrieval capabilities will be illustrated by prototypical developments, as well as concepts and first implementations for an integrated 2D/3D Web-GIS. * Corresponding author. CONTEXT AND MOTIVATIONIn the context of current archaeological research projects, involving various historical and neighbouring scientific disciplines, usually large amounts of digital data are produced or collated. However, in antiquity studies adequate solutions for a consistent and project independent documentation, delivery and archiving of digital research data are still missing. Usually domain, project or institution specific systems are created and used independently. Often these solutions cannot be transferred to other projects, despite overlapping content. This leads to a regular high effort for providing project-specific tools and the large number of different solutions complicates the exchange and long-term availability of digital research data. In addition, the generated data for one object are often held in different systems and data formats, depending on the disciplines involved. Information is generated multiple times independently of each other and is stored in different versions and working drafts. This inevitably leads to inconsistent data within a project and complicates a cross-project analysis. Due to lack of concepts for long-term provisi...