Digital Archaeological Data in the Wild West: the challenge of practising responsible digital data archiving and access in the United States

Nicholson, Chris; Fernandez, Rachel; Irwin, Jessica

doi:10.11141/ia.58.22

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Centuries of archaeological excavations have created a large body of paper records that remain valuable to the discipline (Jeffrey et al 2009). The Gulkana site is just one example of this broader disciplinary issue, referred to as the “legacy data backlog” (Altschul et al 2017; Kansa and Kansa 2018; McManamon et al 2017; Nicholson et al 2021; Wollwage et al 2020). Therefore, it is my hope that the software created and tested in this research can be used as a guide for more broadly designed tools to digitize analog archaeological legacy data.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating a Software Methodology to Analyze and Preserve Archaeological Legacy Data

Fletcher

2023

Adv. archaeol. pract.

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Software now allows archaeologists to document excavations in more detail than ever before through rich, born-digital datasets. In comparison, paper documentation of past excavations (a valuable corpus of legacy data) is prohibitively difficult to work with. This pilot study explores creating custom software to digitize paper field notes from the 1970s excavations of the Gulkana site into machine-readable text and maps to be compatible with born-digital data from subsequent excavations in the 1990s. This site, located in Alaska's Copper River Basin, is important to archaeological understanding of metalworking innovation by precontact Northern Dene people, but is underrepresented in the literature because no comprehensive map of the site exists. The process and results of digitizing this corpus are presented in hopes of aiding similar efforts by other researchers.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating a Software Methodology to Analyze and Preserve Archaeological Legacy Data

Fletcher

2023

Adv. archaeol. pract.

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“…European archaeologists, under the working group SEADDA (Saving European Archaeology from the Digital Dark Age) and in tandem with COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology), have been explicitly engaged in discussions about persistent data repositories, optimizing data for interoperability and reuse, and defining good practices for archaeology in volumes as with Richards and colleagues (2021). Also notable in the Richards et alia volume is a single article on the state of digital archiving in the United States (Nicholson et al 2021), aptly referred to in its title as “the Wild West.” Calls for better archiving of spatial data are certainly not new (e.g., Limp 2016), but they remain salient if not more relevant than ever.…”

Section: Spatial Data: Why It Is About To Get Even More Challengingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Use and Challenges of Spatial Data in Archaeology

Klehm

2023

Adv. archaeol. pract.

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OverviewSpatial data, under the broader umbrella of digital data, is becoming increasingly integral to all stages of archaeological research design and dissemination. As archaeologists lean toward reuse and interoperability, with ethics on their minds, how to treat spatial data is of particular importance. This is because of the complexities involved at every life-cycle stage, from collection to publication, including black box issues that may be taken for granted, and because the size of spatial data can lead to archiving difficulties. Here, the “DIY” momentum of increasingly accessible spatial methods such as photogrammetry and handheld lidar is examined alongside forthcoming changes in publication policies that will impact the United States in particular, framed around a conversation about best practices and a call for more comprehensive training for the archaeological community. At its heart, this special issue seeks to realize the potential of increasingly digitized—and increasingly large amounts of—archaeological data. Within cultural resource management, this means anticipating utilization of data through widespread standardization, among many interrelated activities. A desire to enhance the utility of archaeological data has distinct resonances with the use of spatial data in archaeology, as do some wider challenges that the archaeological community faces moving forward.

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“…Exceptions exist in some federal countries, including Germany where heritage protection operates at the state level (e.g. Bibby 2021), and in the United States (Nicholson et al 2021) although in the latter the main sponsors of work that creates archaeology tend to be national federal agencies. But generally, archaeology is organised at a national state level, and national heritage agencies take a lead in the stipulation of data standards, as well as in directing research frameworks and priorities, even if they are enforced by regional bodies.…”

Section: Background: the Prehistory Of Archaeological Data Aggregationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Joined up Thinking: Aggregating archaeological datasets at an international scale

Richards

2023

Internet Archaeol.

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The archaeological research community was an early adopter of digital tools for data acquisition, organisation, analysis, and presentation of research results of individual projects. However, the provision of e-infrastructure and services for data sharing, discovery, access, and reuse has lagged behind. The ARIADNE Research Infrastructure has sought to address this situation. Developed with European funding, ARIADNE has created an e-infrastructure that enables data providers to register and provide access to their digital resources through the ARIADNE data portal, facilitating discovery, access, and research. ARIADNE has aggregated resources from over 45 data providers, spanning over 40 countries and 4 continents. The portal now provides online access to over 3.9 million research resources. It is based upon Linked Open Data technologies and is underpinned by a flexible and extensible architecture, enabling multiple combinations and presentations of the same underpinning data. We have been keen not to 'make a great heap' of all the data and, learning from previous data aggregation projects, we have defined a subset of the CIDOC CRM to be used as a strict ontology and paid close attention to data standards and controlled vocabularies to achieve a high degree of interoperability. This article discusses some of the challenges of large-scale data integration and describes the approaches adopted to ensure that the ARIADNE Knowledge Base is an effective tool for archaeological heritage management and research at a national and international level.

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Digital Archaeological Data in the Wild West: the challenge of practising responsible digital data archiving and access in the United States

Cited by 5 publications

References 25 publications

Creating a Software Methodology to Analyze and Preserve Archaeological Legacy Data

Creating a Software Methodology to Analyze and Preserve Archaeological Legacy Data

The Use and Challenges of Spatial Data in Archaeology

Joined up Thinking: Aggregating archaeological datasets at an international scale

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