| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Thursday 6 April 2023, RAI Congress Centre, E105-106 - S29. Putting the R in FAIR | ||||||
2 | Order | Time | Theme | Paper ID | Authors | Title | Abstract |
3 | 0 | Introduction | None | Holly Wright (University of York) | Introduction: How do we ensure archaeological data are usable and Reusable, and for whom? Putting the R in FAIR | A brief introduction to the TETRARCHs project and the themes and intent of the session. | |
4 | Sara Perry (MOLA) | ||||||
5 | 1 | 08:30 | Storytelling with data | 27 | Fran Allfrey ( University of York ) | “Is this your first visit to Avebury?” - Creating, Using, and Reusing Archaeological Data in the Avebury Papers | Context The UKRI-funded Avebury Papers project is in the process of digitising the full archive of 20th century excavation and fieldwork carried out at the Avebury henge component of the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site (WHS) in Wiltshire, England. We aim to produce a definitive research resource, and to build digital environments that encourage creative, personal, and experimental reuse of the data therein. Notwithstanding its international importance, the only large-scale excavations (and perhaps ‘large’ does not do full justice to the scope and ambition of this work) that have taken place at Avebury were carried out in the first half of the 20th Century, brought to an abrupt end by the outbreak of WWII. Despite publication of two short interim reports by the excavator, and a masterful synthesis by Isobel Smith, published 26 years after Keiller’s last excavation season and incorporating excavation work by Stuart Piggott in 1960, there is a strong sense here of an ambitious project that was begun but never satisfactorily finished. This was not only fieldwork on an impressive scale, but it was methodologically intrepid, fiercely experimental and generated a wealth of detailed information about Avebury’s past and present. There has been no sustained attempt to synthesise, integrate and make available the full detail encoded in the archives resulting from Keiller’s work or the smaller investigations that took place after. This has led to only partial understandings of this pivotal site, a raft of orthodox explanations that have gained authority solely through repetition, circular arguments, repeated rediscoveries and a serial (wilful) forgetting of the results of previous work. This, in turn, has also allowed the site to slip free of meaningful interpretation (there is simply too much that we do not know…) and be appropriated for extreme political ends (…yet these gaps in understanding demand to be filled). In short, the Avebury excavations are important and they have a wealth of stories to tell. Yet, at present, who is able to tell these stories or even tease out their general shape and the events, arcana and dramatis personae that animate and enchant them? To rectify this the Avebury Papers will carry out unfinished programmes of detailed post-excavation analysis, synthesising the mass of unpublished detail that survives only in archive form. Most critically, we are seeking to let the stories out – whether these lie within empirical measurement and scientific analysis, folklore and enchantment, or emotion and affect. As part of this, we will make the full set of data available and accessible through the design and implementation of an open access digital archive, that will provide a baseline from which all future engagements with Avebury can proceed. This will not only support future archaeological and heritage studies, but is expressly designed to stimulate, foster and nurture innovative public and creative engagement. Main argument and discussion This paper comes at an early and experimental stage in the Avebury Papers project, laying out our ambitions for three years’ of research to come. In this paper, we will discuss our theoretical and practical strategies for developing artist-led and community-produced data creation and storytelling methods. We are developing these strategies for two interlinked reasons: firstly, to meet our ambition to open up the Avebury archive to analytic, interpretive, and creative reuse by non-specialists; and secondly, we aim to enable specialists to productively engage with the socially and culturally contingent structures which shape and are shaped by traditional archive-creation and historiography. We will outline existing challenges in the Avebury archive, and reflect on how tensions long identified within the FAIR Guiding Principles may be productively experimented with: especially in relation to creating ‘different ways in’ for reuse. One particular focus will be around enabling participants to explore and reuse stories of archaeological workers. This is a key strand of work within the project, as we seek to centre the paid and unpaid working class archaeologists, women archaeologists, and artists who participated in excavations, whose fingerprints are all over the archive. Their names are rarely uttered in orthodox accounts of Avebury, and many exist merely as initials in site diaries or as incidental inclusions in site photographs. Our aims to facilitate creative reuse of the archive align with the UK AHRC's Cultural Value Project, by developing arts-based methods for opening up original analytical pathways in order to furnish new analyses and interpretations (UKRI AHRC, 142-3). This is particularly important given world heritage is finding itself at the centre of ideological struggles; a set of contemporary debates to which Avebury's long history has much to contribute. We are galvanised by TETRARCHs’ provocations which challenge archaeologists to rethink the ways in which data, finds, and documentation may be used to tell stories in more democratic and equitable ways. We will discuss existing collaborative, feminist, and anti-colonial archiving and interpretation theories and practices for opening up data (eg. D'Ignazio and Klein, 2020; James and Thornton, 2022), and reflect on how these may be put to work in the context of the Avebury archive. Finally, we will discuss our plans for measuring the efficacy and impact of our strategies for facilitating reuse. As well as producing an archive of existing physical documentation and artefacts, the Avebury Papers will also archive itself, keeping a record of how decisions have been made, and how data has been collected and created. We are leaving fingerprints too. We will discuss our strategies for embedding within the data reminders that our data was not born digital, and that a variety of curatorial, interpretive, technological, imaginative, and institutional processes shape its creation, organisation, presentation, and use. We will therefore outline the ethical, theoretical, and practical considerations and questions that arise from our aims to produce a radically transparent and accessible archive. References D'Ignazio, Catherine and Lauren F. Klein. Data Feminism. 2020. MIT Press. James, Katharine, and Amara Thornton. “On working with gender.” Beyond Notability, February 24, 2022. https://beyondnotability.org/database/on-working-with-gender/ UKRI AHRC Cultural Value Project Report. March 17, 2016. https://ahrc.ukri.org/documents/publications/cultural-value-project-final-report/. |
6 | Ben Chan ( University of Bournemouth ) | ||||||
7 | Ros Cleal ( National Trust ) | ||||||
8 | Mark Gillings ( University of Bournemouth ) | ||||||
9 | Colleen Morgan ( GB ) | ||||||
10 | 2 | 08:50 | Storytelling with data | 325 | Sveta Matskevich ( IAA ) | Digital Marginalia in Archaeological Archives | Our ability to predict how archaeological archives will be reused in the future is quite limited. Yet, we can learn a lot from the current and past user behavior patterns in an archive, not necessarily digital ones. Being privileged to have access to hundred years of archaeological records in a small but highly dense archaeological region opens an opportunity to observe the big picture of data reuse and provides fascinating examples of storytelling based on archived documents. The Scientific Archive of the Israel Antiquities Authority preserves excavation files (obligatory for submission) from 1948 until today; the early ones are in the process of digitization and born-digital are from the 2010s onward. The same repository oversees the files of the Department of Antiquities of the British Mandate in Palestine (1921-1948). For these hundred years of the records of about 70% of archaeological activities in the region, we have access to a ten-year record of the user requests to both Mandatory and Israeli sections of the archive. Among the inquiries, there is a large group of standard requests. These are coming from archaeologists who will excavate a site and wish to know its history and the history of its exploration. Whatever data acquisition workflow we create in a future digital archive platform, we need to ensure that we can accommodate a straightforward request. The other group comprises challenging and intriguing requests. These may come from the representatives of completely unexpected disciplines and archaeologists, who ask to reuse the data creatively, often by recontextualizing it. While digitizing these collections and planning a platform for the digitized and born-digital records, we worked by the book. We created a metadata scheme based on the Dublin Core that covers the records' technical, administrative, and descriptive properties. The result, so far, is a well-structured and sufficiently described set of dry records: find lists, context cards, photographs, plans, etc. What may go missing in this data pool are "marginalia": side notes, sketches, personal messages, and personal items secondary used for data collection. All these exist in the original collection but are in danger of being sorted out and not digitized or getting lost in the digital repository because there is no way to find them. The situation is even worse with the excavations of the last two to three decades that communicate via WhatsApp messages, endless emails, and online meetings, producing much more than a standard set of records obligatory for submission to the national archive. Part of these "lost" documents reflect the stories we tell about a site; others are important for our understanding of the history of its research, while the two stories are interwoven, and each one is essential for understanding the other. Another group of documents often dismissed already in the process of submission to an archive or digitizing are drafts that are essential for understanding the process of knowledge creation since this process is rarely reflected in publications. In several case studies from the old and new archives, I will demonstrate the need for creating a niche for "digital marginalia": unstructured records (born-digital and digitized), correspondence, and other types of marginal notes that are essential for understanding how the official story came to existence. |
11 | |||||||
12 | |||||||
13 | |||||||
14 | 3 | 09:10 | Storytelling with data | 66 | Tessa Poller ( University of Glasgow ) | How Can Imagination Lead Us from Description to Interpretation in Archaeological Practice? | The process that leads from description to interpretation at every scale of archaeological practice (from artefact and layer to feature and site to environment and landscape) is often not explicit or fully apparent through our standard recording systems. Traditional forms of archaeological training and practice focus first on obtaining consistent and accurate descriptions as well as gaining some level of ‘experience’ (which too is often poorly defined). But how are interpretations formed from observation and description? Once this question is asked, more follow… How is interpretation as a skill learned? Who does and who can form interpretation(s)? How and where are interpretations communicated? How can interpretations be reformed, changed and built upon to create new interpretation? In this presentation I will discuss my explorations in the process of archaeological interpretation while managing field schools and directing archaeological excavations in Central Scotland over the past fifteen years (see Poller et al. 2016). Specifically, I will propose that imagination is a crucial link between description and interpretation in archaeological practice, which is largely unrecognised, undervalued, and, at times, even demonised as ‘fiction’. A few studies from different perspectives have demonstrated imagination and related mechanisms such as storytelling can be used effectively as tools during the archaeological process (see van Helden & Witcher 2020; Perry 2018). More globally, however, there has been little acknowledgement in terms of how much and in which ways imagination is already employed and, significantly very little research on its potential as a skill to hone or as a tool to expand the voices and types of interpretation possible. This may in part be due to a desire to downplay subjectivity or ignorance in the self-imposed constraints embedded in our process and documentation, but this lack of appreciation may also be due to a misunderstanding of what imagination is. Philosophers of imagination such as Amy Kind (2022) have clearly recognised and defined different types of imagination. Since imagination is subject to will, it is not only transcendental or used to create impossible fantasies but can be intentionally controlled and therefore instructive. For archaeological purposes instructive imagination is significant. Kind (2020) also concludes that imagination is a skill that can be trained and enhanced through engaged and value-rich practices such as storytelling and mind-opening exercises. By embracing imagination in our systems of recording what can we imagine the future of archaeological practice to be? Kind, Amy. 2020. “The Skill of Imagination.” In The Routledge Handbook of Skill and Expertise, edited by E. Fridland and C. Pavese, 335-346. Abingdon: Routledge. Kind, Amy. 2022. Imagination and Creative Thinking (Elements in Philosophy of Mind). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Perry, Sara. 2018. “Why Are Heritage Interpreters Voiceless at the Trowel’s Edge? A Plea for Rewriting the Archaeological Workflow.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 6(3): 212-227. Poller, Tessa; Watterson, Alice, Baxter, Kieran, Anderson, Jon and Keiran Duncan. 2016. “Designing Digital Engagements: The SERF Hillforts Project.” http://www.seriousanimation.com/hillforts/ van Helden, Daniël and Robert Witcher (eds.) 2020. Researching the archaeological past through imagined narratives: a necessary fiction, Abingdon: Routledge. |
15 | |||||||
16 | |||||||
17 | |||||||
18 | 4 | 09:30 | Storytelling with data | 251 | Marco Callieri ( ISTI-CNR ) | The Dynamic Collections - a 3D Web Platform of Archaeological Artefacts designed for Data Reuse and Deep Interaction. | This paper will present the latest results of the Dynamic Collections platform, a 3D web archive designed to support data reuse and deep interaction with digital archaeological artefacts. It will also discuss the possibilities offered by Web 3D access for producing knowledge, supporting research and higher education. Finally, the paper will discuss the capacity of such visualisation tools to promote FAIR principles, providing users with dynamic instruments for envisioning a broader picture of the past. Archaeological collections are crucial for the cultural heritage sector. They are used daily for research and training cultural heritage specialists to study stylistic variation and chronological developments, and the awareness of the potential loss of archaeological materials has led curators to engage with 3D recording techniques for documenting and preserving museum collections (e.g. Arnold & Kaminski, 2014; Ekengren et al., 2021). Despite the considerable investments made in Europe for establishing data platforms for promoting large-scale research and innovation in the cultural heritage sector, it remains challenging to define the role of 3D archives in producing new knowledge. These limits became evident during the pandemic, in which digital collections were no longer just reference sources but the only available sources for research and teaching. This situation underlined the urgent need to research strategies for the definition of digital collections as primary tools for undertaking research and for fully supporting scholars operating in the digital space. Dynamic Collections was developed to address these issues and map new technology's impact on the constantly evolving archaeological practice.The basic idea was to go beyond using a single digital object and create an archive with functionalities for managing custom assemblages of objects (hence, dynamic collections) for studying and teaching activities. The platform hosts a wide set of digitised artefacts, enriched by simple meta- and para-data content; the users can assemble a collection that suits their purpose from the available digital objects and then work on this custom collection by interacting/measuring/annotating the collected objects. This annotated collection can then be shared with colleagues and students to pursue a collaborative working/teaching environment. By using an efficient, streaming-friendly multiresolution data representation, and a customised navigation and visualisation interface built on top of the 3DHOP tool (https://www.3dhop.net/), the platform makes it easy to remotely access and interact with complex 3D models, and allows for the development and experimentation with new interactive tools. The project recently developed a prototype that connects 3DHOP with OMEKA-S, a web publishing platform for institutions interested in linking digital collections with other resources online (https://omeka.org/s/). This development increases the possibilities of Dynamic Collections to share digital content, publish items with linked open data, and more easily reuse the information currently stored in the system. Dynamic Collections is an ongoing project and a collaboration between The Lund University Digital Archaeology Laboratory and the Visual Computing Laboratory, CNR-ISTI, Italy. Several scholars currently use the system to support teaching and research, and it presently hosts more than 400 3D artefacts from different Swedish museums and research projects. More recently, it became part of the newly established Swedish National Infrastructure in Digital Archaeology SweDigArch, and it is used as a raw model by different institutions for publishing their data. References: Arnold, D., & Kaminski, J. (2014). 3D scanning and presentation of ethnographic collections: Potentials and challenges. Journal of Museum Ethnography, 27, 78–97. Chazan, M. (2019). The reality of artifacts: An archaeological perspective. Routledge Studies in Archaeology. New York: Routledge. Ekengren, F., Callieri, M., Dininno, D., Berggren, Å., MacHeridis, S., & Dell'Unto, N. (2021). Dynamic Collections: A 3D Web Infrastructure for Artifact Engagement. Open Archaeology, 7(1), 337-352. https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2020-0139 Potenziani, M., Callieri, M., Dellepiane, M., Corsini, M., Ponchio, F., & Scopigno, R. (2015). 3DHOP: 3D Heritage Online Presenter Computers & Graphics, 52, 129-141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2015.07.001 |
19 | Åsa Berggren ( Lund University ) | ||||||
20 | Nicolò Dell'Unto ( Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Lund University ) | ||||||
21 | Paola Derudas ( Lund University ) | ||||||
22 | Domenica Dininno ( Lund University ) | ||||||
23 | Fredrik Ekengren ( Lund University ) | ||||||
24 | Giuseppe Naponiello ( Lund Unicersity ) | ||||||
25 | 5 | 09:50 | Discussion | None | All session participants | ||
26 | 6 | 10:20 | Data workflows, methods and knowledge creation | 38 | Meliha Handzic ( International Burch University ) | Managing Archaeological Knowledge: A Researcher’s Perspective | So far, the majority of projects in digital archaeology have addressed archiving/curation of data and their use/reuse as separate issues. One consequence of such a divide may be a potential mismatch between available and needed data for research purposes and knowledge creation. Most recently, there have been some notable attempts to bridge this divide and take a more holistic approach to managing archaeological knowledge (e.g. ARKWORK, SEADDA). Continuing such a trend, the purpose of this paper is to introduce an integrated model for archaeological knowledge management in digital environments and illustrate its application in the context of a specific UNESCO-listed cultural heritage (stecci). The generic conceptual model of knowledge management (KM) presented in Figure 1 indicates different technologies and their roles in enabling and facilitating processes of development, transfer and utilisation of knowledge. The model also shows two dominant KM approaches: codification and personalisation (Hansen et al. 1999). Codification emphasises explicit knowledge stored and extracted from digital repositories, while personalisation focuses on tacit knowledge in people’s minds and its sharing. It is argued here that a combination of these two approaches to managing archaeological knowledge in digital space is necessary in order to realise the full power of that knowledge. Figure 1. Types of KM Technologies and Roles (Handzic 2004) According to Lauzikas et al. (2018), contemporary people engage with archaeological heritage objects, artefacts, information or knowledge for different reasons and in different ways. In this paper, we illustrate the application of the above conceptual model in a specific cultural heritage case (stecci) from the researcher’s perspective. With respect to knowledge repository, a systematic approach for creating digital stecci records was developed and applied including a series of templates. These were successfully tested and can serve as a reference for future knowledge capture. The model was also useful as a theoretical basis for a series of studies aimed at discovering novel spatial, temporal, and relational patterns in created digital repositories. A virtual community of practice (CoP) formed around common interests in stecci proved valuable for connecting scholars from various institutions and for maintaining active knowledge sharing. Finally, new and enriched ways of perceiving stecci through virtual artworks and games provided new interpretations and explanations of the past. Overall, the experience gained so far suggests that the right digital space for managing archaeological knowledge needs to be dynamic (enable future additions to repositories), reliable (able to be trusted), flexible (support different research needs), interactive (allow two-way communication), and easy to use (by scholars who are not technologically savvy). References Handzic M. (2004), Knowledge Management: Through the Technology Glass (Series on Innovation and Knowledge Management), World Scientific Publishing, Singapore. Hansen M.T., Nohria N. and Tierney T.J. (1999), What’s your strategy for managing knowledge?, Harvard Business Review, March-April, 106-116. Lauzikas R., Dallas C., Thomas S., Kelpslene I., Huvila I., Luengo P., Nobre H., Toumpouri M. and Vaitkevicius V. (2018), Archaeological Knowledge Production and Global Communities: Boundaries and Structure of the Field, Open Archaeology, 4, 350–364. |
27 | |||||||
28 | |||||||
29 | |||||||
30 | Break | 10:40 | |||||
31 | 7 | 11:00 | Data workflows, methods and knowledge creation | 194 | Thomas Huet ( University of Oxford, School of Archaeology ) | From thesaurus to semantic network: make (re)usable the ANRJCJC Itineris data | The ANRJC Itineris (https://anr.fr/Projet-ANR-21-CE27-0010) is a 42 months funded research project on the characterisation of Italic bronze craftsmanship in the Early Iron Age. This international project promotes an innovative and comprehensive methodological examination of the new and unpublished data acquired, combining the archaeological approach with technological, archaeometric and geostatistical analyses (Cicolani 2017, 2020). Focusing on craft techniques networks and knowledge flows modelling, this project sets out to explore the ways in which technologies, traditions and fashion behavior are transmitted over wide areas and across cultural boundaries, revealing new scenarios and social models. In consistency with LOD and FAIR policies (Wilkinson et al. 2016), the Workpackage 3 of the ITINERIS project takes care of open-source data and tools in order to provide to the scientific community open access results, codes and data produced during the project as well as after their publication. In this framework, the scientific collaboration with Bibracte (https://www.bibracte.fr/bibracte-numerique) will enable the development of a controlled vocabulary. Indeed, Bibracte has shown that the ISO 25964 standard for the management of thesauri is sufficiently flexible to describe the different "points of view" presiding over the elaboration of the specialised and evolving "micro-languages" of archaeologists, for the creation of terminological concepts (e.g. typo-chronologies) and for their logical modelling, as well as for structuring the data in addition to their metadata. Projected as computable graphs, the vocabulary, data and their relationships can then be used to characterise the processes of transformation and organisation of the reasoning and meaning of concepts from specialised archaeological 'micro-languages'. (Reich et al., forthcoming). Our paper will focus in particular on how to make the ANR Itineris data (unprocessed, processed, meta, etc.) FAIR by developing structured datasets compliant with ISO standards, coding in open-source (R, Python) and using an open-source web platform (GitHub, 3DHOP) allowing users to interact with the processed data (measurements, 3D models, maps, etc.) and to download the raw data. All of this data will also be indexed using the trilingual thesaurus developed as part of the project. Cicolani, Veronica 2017. Passeurs des Alpes. La culture de Golasecca entre Méditerranée et Europe continentale à l’âge du Fer, Paris : Éditions HERMANN , 360 p. (ISBN : 97827056 94166) Cicolani, Veronica 2020. Interactions techno-culturelles en Italie nord-occidentale aux VIe-Ve siècles av. J.-C., Mélanges de l'École française de Rome - Antiquité [En ligne], 132-1 | 2020, mis en ligne le 07 décembre 2020, consulté le 26 janvier 2022. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/mefra/10093. doi: https://doi.org/10.4000/mefra.10093 Reich Guillaume, Durost Sebastien, Girard Jean-Pierre, Lacombe E., Rousset Miled (in press). Enjeux techniques, terminologiques et heuristiques pour la mise en réseau et l'analyse des connaissances archéologiques. Terminologie & Ontologie : Théories et Applications. Actes de la conférence TOTh 2022, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, 2-3 juin 2022. Terminologica, Chambéry : Presses Universitaires Savoie Mont Blanc. Wilkinson, Mark D., Dumontier, Michel, Aalbersberg, Jan Aalbersberg,, Appleton, Gabrielle, Axton, Myles, Baak, Arie, Blomberg, Niklas, Boiten, Jean Willem, da Silva Santos, Luiz Bonino, Bourne, Philip E. and Bouwman Jildau et al. 2016. The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship. Scientific data, 3(1), 1–9. doi:10.1038/sdata.2016.18 |
32 | Veronica Cicolani ( CNRS ) | ||||||
33 | Guillaume Reich ( Frantiq ) | ||||||
34 | Sebastien Durost ( Bibracte ) | ||||||
35 | 8 | 11:20 | Data workflows, methods and knowledge creation | 10 | Stephen Stead ( GB ) | True integration: moving from just finding archives to interpreting archaeological documentation utilising CRMarchaeo | This integration study considers how the body of archaeological excavation databases of The Archaeologists (a department within the National Historical Museums of Sweden) were prepared for integration utilising the CRMarchaeo extension of the CIDOC Conceptual Reference Model (CRM). The Archaeologists create about 250 new Intrasis-databases each year (one for each new site) and currently have 1200 active and 1100 archived databases. Traditional GIS based gazetteers allow the discovery of which archives/databases are about the correct type of site or that are in the right geographic area. However, the researcher still needs to immerse themself in the details of the individual archive to see if the research questions, excavation/recording methodology, and pragmatic responses to circumstances are compatible with the goals of the researchers’ study. In comparison, with the CRMarchaeo ontology applied to the archives/databases, the work required to check if the data is fit for the study’s purposes is possible at the integration layer. This means more opportunities for innovative intra- and inter-site research as the effort required to discover appropriate material is reduced. The presentation will showcase the work undertaken by Intrasis and Paveprime to prepare this approach and the benefits that have accrued from it: in particular the improved reusability when the databases are accessible through Swedigarch and also the greater clarity in the approach to future documentation practice. CRMarchaeo, an extension of CIDOC CRM, is a way to link a wide range of existing documentation from archaeological excavations. The CRMarchaeo extension has been created to promote a shared understanding of how to formalise the knowledge extracted from the observations made by archaeologists. It provides a set of concepts and properties that allow clear explanation (and separation) of the observations and interpretations made, both in the field and in post-excavation. https://www.cidoc-crm.org/crmarchaeo/ SweDigArch, the Swedish National Infrastructure for Digital Archaeology, will facilitate the production of aggregated and harmonised datasets, fulfilling demands for cutting-edge integrative, interdisciplinary research on long-term socio environmental dynamics. It will enable new approaches for digital methods and reinvent archaeological research agendas. http://swedigarch.se/ |
36 | Jane Jansen ( Statens Historiska Museer Arkeologerna ) | ||||||
37 | |||||||
38 | |||||||
39 | 9 | 11:40 | Data workflows, methods and knowledge creation | 52 | Galo Romero-García | The reusability of geospatial data in archaeology using web applications: PEPAdb | The significant growth of digital spatial information has led archaeologists all over Europe to increasingly rely on digital data to prepare and carry out archaeological research (McKeague et al. 2019). The main interest in the publication of spatial and non-spatial indexed archaeological data is to offer users the possibility of querying, downloading, and/or accessing them in external applications. This apps are aimed to model, analyze, display, or generate new geospatial data, information, and value-added resources, both in academia and general public. Given the extremely high cost of generating spatially indexed archaeological data, the reuse of this data by users is highly expected. As the result of not complying with the FAIR EU policy, the already existing spatial indexed archaeological data are not easily accessible and therefore hard to reuse by the general public, or the academia (Sobotkova 2018). PEPAdb (Prehistoric Europe's Personal Adornment database) is a long term multidisciplinary and open research project which has materialized in a web-app for the online publication of georeferenced archaeological scientific data referring to late personal adornment in Europe’s Late Prehistory. PEPAdb is maintained since 2010 through the concatenation of several R&D projects funded by the Spanish government. This initiative aims to comply with the FAIR principles encouraging the reusability of archaeological data through the use of standards by means of web spatial technologies. Case study: mapping personal adornment in the Iberian Peninsula. The actual geographical coverage is restricted to the Iberian Peninsula including: a) information extracted from bibliographic resources in accordance with the standardized procedures such as: contradictions and ambiguities resolutions or cross-checking of different sources and museum pieces and b) information referring to the elemental and mineralogical composition of the analyzed museum and other institutions pieces, their provenance (when possible), a bundle of archaeometric and metric data. 3. Material and methods 3.1 Data acquisition: Fieldwork and analytical methods The dataset resulting from this long-term project, PEPAdb, is composed by a significant amount of spatially indexed qualitative and quantitative data of very different types (table materials). 1. Molecular level analysis of geological samples and artifacts 2. Elemental composition analysis of geological samples and artifacts 3. Metrics of the indexed items. 3.2 Data integration in a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS). Spatial data integration is an essential component for personal adornment data, and it has the aim to support further analysis and produce easy understandable maps. We build up a relational data model (datamodel image) with PostgreSQL 11 tool in which the set of data items such as archaeological sites and structures, beads (and other types of personal adornment) records, mineralogy... are organized in tables. 3.3 Layer sharing and webapp customization: GIS software system for developing an archaeological application. Database systems provide the engines for GIS. In the database community, GIS are primarily associated with spatial databases. The development of ArcGIS Enterprise System provides a simple way to customize layers and deploy web-applications through ArcGIS Web AppBuilder. 3.4 Webserver configuration. In order to display a webapp to the World Wide Web (WWW) it is necessary to integrate ArcGIS Server in our institution web server: Internet Information Service (IIS). ArcGIS Web Adaptor is an application that integrates both Portal and ArcGIS Server in our webserver. During the installation, users must specify a website (https://pepadb.us.es) where content would be display. (pipeline in attached image). 4 Description of PEPAdb web application. PEPAdb has been designed in order to allow users to visualize and download spatial data in a HTML environment. It takes the form of a map viewer showing the frequency of the minerals used in each site or archaeological structure depending on the quality of the archaeological available, as for example, late 19th early 20th century findings in museums are labelled as belonging to a necropolis and not to a specific structure within the necropolis. Clicking on the structure / site will displays a pop-up showing the number of items recorded for that particular structure / site and the frequencies of minerals used. It has a set of widgets which allows clients to explore, upload and access data in a simple way. 5 Next steps. A further development is needed in order to create an effective tool for the scholar community. In relation to mineralogy, consideration should be given to the possibility of integrating a machine learning function to predict mineral composition based on the elemental composition. Users will upload a CSV that the algorithm will use to calculate the predictions, adding the assessment of probability for that specific prediction. 6 Concluding remarks. It is known the historical difficulty of sharing data in arts and humanities. As this is funded research, the data derived must be in Open Access, which implies a data re-use. Archaeological web applications for late Prehistory information management are completely necessary in the transfer of knowledge. Data automation is a major challenge considering that PEPAdb has thousands of records related to prehistoric materials. This is why it is necessary to establish a workflow capable of overcoming some of the limitations associated with the massive amount of data. 7 References. McKeague, Peter, Rein van‘t Veer, Isto Huvila, Anne Moreau, Philip Verhagen, Loup Bernard, Anwen Cooper, Chris Green, y Niels van Manen. 2019. «Mapping Our Heritage: Towards a Sustainable Future for Digital Spatial Information and Technologies in European Archaeological Heritage Management». Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology 2 (1): 89 104. https://doi.org/10.5334/jcaa.23. Sobotkova, Adela. 2018. «Sociotechnical Obstacles to Archaeological Data Reuse». Advances in Archaeological Practice 6 (2): 117-24. https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2017.37. |
40 | 10 | 12:00 | Data workflows, methods and knowledge creation | 348 | Andreas Noback ( Technical University of Darmstadt ) | Reuse of photogrammetric data seen from different perspectives: creators, repository providers and users | While the FAIR data principles provide general guidelines for the management and stewardship of scientific data, the development of suitable solutions for its reuse requires an understanding of the life cycle of specific data. This includes knowledge about software tools, file formats and methods, but also about the stakeholders involved. An example and a common case in the field of archaeology is the exchange of 3D data from photogrammetric acquisition and laser scanning. In this contribution the topic of FAIR 3D data reflects experience from the ongoing development of a domain specific data repository for architecture, civil engineering and urban studies and is exemplified using the data processing within an interdisciplinary project in the field of ancient architecture and archaeology. In this project, 3D models of architectural remains serve as a basis for reconstruction models used for daylight simulation. In two case studies of Roman housing existing 3D data could be reused. For the case of Greek residential architecture, the research group conducted the building survey autoptically. Therefore, the opportunity is given to understand aspects of the repository provider perspective as well as the creator and user perspective. Contrasting those views, a best practice example for data acquisition, publication and metadata provision can be drafted. Provider perspective While general purpose repositories providing long-term access and preservation are well established, discipline and method related specializations of repositories, data containers and metadata standards necessary for reuse are currently under development. Repository providers alone can hardly meet the demands of heterogeneous domain specific data and metadata. Communities have to get involved to identify necessary metadata for search and interoperability, and to establish reliable exchange formats. The same is true for defining quality requirements and foster the acceptance of data publication as original scientific contribution. Creator perspective New 3D data was created within the use-case from a photogrammetric building survey of the Late Classical residential architecture in the ancient city of Orraon. The research questions of the project already resulted in wide-ranging preconditions for the nature and amount of 3D data needed. Nevertheless, efforts were made not only to ensure the general accessibility and reusability of the collected data, but also to meet the more specific needs of findability and interoperability. This included the development of a spatial database that allows querying any existing textual, graphical or geometric information on the dwellings from literature, archival sources or autoptic examination. To ensure the quality of the photogrammetric data, the site’s appearance was documented as well as the local measurement grid, the georeferencing, the distribution of photo targets, the camera model and its lens distortion parameters et cetera as well as the accuracy of the final photogrammetric model itself. The resulting models as well as all raw data are stored together in open, long-term archivable formats as a closed dataset and are annotated by metadata, to meet the technical requirements for FAIR 3D data and standards for photogrammetric documentation work in the context of cultural heritage and building archaeology. User perspective Data collected for one purpose does not always fit another. Finding suitable data for the Roman case studies proved challenging, since knowledge about and access to data often enough relies on personal relations and individual contracts. In the planning phase of projects relying on 3D data already gathered, a central database or repository with the possibility to search data by location, quality, coverage, 3D preview, licence and other parameters would be beneficial. In the specific use-case of the research project high resolution 3D data of ancient residential architecture was needed for the detailed examination of architectural features relevant for lighting and the development of reconstruction models as well as additional information about the building history and accurate georeferencing. Conclusion Contrasting the different perspectives reveals that the handling of FAIR 3D data has to be understood as a dynamic, multi-stakeholder interaction process. Research data management needs to be understood not only as providing infrastructure but as active brokering between data providers, data creators und data users. The privilege of access to cultural heritage, the avoidance of unnecessary damage to the site, the amount of tax money spent on labour and equipment are good arguments for FAIR data publication. But the developments toward FAIR data should be accompanied by a serious dialogue on good scientific practice and performance, and also by rethinking funding principles and practice. As all things digital, the reuse of digital data leads to a further differentiation of labour and specialisation within archaeology that may lead to an imbalance between groundwork and innovative research. Best practice has to include standards for data publication and licensing. In principle, the use of FAIR data necessitates the publication of own results as FAIR data as well. Ducke, B., Fritsch, B., Schilling, M. (2021), Qualitätssicherung von 3D-Modellen für die Online-Publikation, in: Forum for Digital Archaeology and Infrastructure 1, 1–30 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.34780/bi19-9w1a) Hardesty, J., Johnson, J., Wittenberg, J., Hall, N., Cook, M., Lischer-Katz, Z., Xie, Z., McDonald, R. (2020), 3D Data Repository Features, Best Practices, and Implications for Preservation Models, in: Findings from a National Forum. College & Research Libraries 81(5), 789–807 Homburg, T., Cramer, A., Raddatz, L., Mara, H. (2021), Metadata schema and ontology for capturing and processing of 3D cultural heritage objects, in: Herit Sci 9:91, 1–19 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40494-021-00561-w) |
41 | Claudia Maechler ( Technical University of Darmstadt ) | ||||||
42 | |||||||
43 | |||||||
44 | 11 | 12:20 | Discussion | None | All session participants | ||
45 | 12 | 12:40 | The challenges of structuring / structured data | 308 | Robert Theberge ( Georgia State University ) | The Penfield African American Cemetery Project: Geophysics and Digital Archives for the Public | Introduction: A robust history exists for the use of geophysics within the field of archaeology, specifically within cemetery contexts (Bevan, 1991. Bigman, 2013. Conyers, 2013). As the discipline transitions to paradigms favoring engaged, public-facing components of archaeological investigations, best practices for the public dissemination of paired geophysical and geospatial data are not as well developed. Typically, complex ground penetrating radar (GPR) data are displayed as jpegs in reports or as geotiffs in GIS projects. While these approaches are adequate in many situations, it does keep the GPR analysis in a black-box and does not allow for those data to be easily linked to other historical data or to be easily accessed by future scholars. Methods: This paper discusses a collaborative effort between archaeologists at Georgia State University’s Department of Anthropology, members of the Historic Rural Churches of Georgia (HRCGA) non-profit historical society, and scholars at the Digital Initiatives Department of the Pitts Theology Library at Emory University. This interdisciplinary project seeks to incorporate archaeological field data into a digital archive infrastructure developed by Pitts Theology Library so that it can be featured alongside materials related to historic rural churches drawn from library partners to facilitate scholarly research, local history, genealogical inquiry, and more. Specifically, this case study explores the ways in which geophysical data derived from a GPR investigation within the ill-maintained African American section of an historic cemetery in Greene County, GA will interface with historical resources surrounding the associated Penfield Baptist Church in order to inform the wider narrative concerning the church’s pivotal role in the growth and development of this region. Results: This project is on-going as part of the first author’s Master’s Thesis research. By the time of the conference, the GPR data of Penfield cemetery will have been collected and its integration with the other datasets will be well underway. Discussion: As part of a larger network of projects focused on the Penfield community, this work involves partnerships with the Greene County African American Museum and Mercer University’s Spencer B. King, Jr. Center for Southern Studies. In seeking to preserve and disseminate geophysical and geospatial data for a public audience, this case study contributes to discussions surrounding the development and standardization of best practices for the creation of digital archives that include both historical materials and newly generated archaeological data, particularly in community-involved projects. References: Bevan, Bruce. 1991.” The search for graves.” Geophysics. 56. 1310-1319. 10.1190/1.1889567. Bigman, Daniel P. 2013. “Mapping social relationships: geophysical survey of a nineteenth-century American slave cemetery.” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 6(1): 17–30. Conyers, Lawrence B. 2013. “Ground-Penetrating Radar for Archaeology.” 3rd ed. Altamira Press, Lanham, MD. 2014 Interpreting Ground-Penetrating Radar for Archaeology. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek. |
46 | Jeffrey Glover ( Georgia State University ) | ||||||
47 | Spencer Roberts ( Emory University ) | ||||||
48 | |||||||
49 | |||||||
50 | Lunch | 13:20 | |||||
51 | 13 | 14:00 | The challenges of structuring / structured data | 26 | Johanna Roiha ( University of Helsinki ) | Data from the past? The challenge of reusing the Finnish Heritage Agency’s archaeological data | Introduction The Finnish Heritage Agency is collecting and maintains data about cultural heritage in Finland. Information about archaeological heritage including archives, registers and collections is available via kulttuuriympäristön palveluikkuna -web portal. One important section is the Register of Ancient Sites (Muinaisjäännösrekisteri 2022). The register includes site coordinates, site descriptions, site classifications and links to research reports and listed finds. The spatial data is also available via WMS and WFS interfaces or as one downloadable zip file via Finnish Heritage Agency’s webpage (Kulttuuriympäristön paikkatietoaineistot 2022). Datasets are published under the CC By 4.0-licence. The register is updated constantly but it also includes very old information, like linked archaeological research reports from the end of the 19th century or site descriptions that are from the early 20th century. Because some of the data is based on old research, the quality of the archaeological data available variates and missing information causes many challenges for data reuse. This study aims to discuss the challenge of data reuse via two different case studies. In the first case study, the data was collected from a cultural perspective. The second case study is focusing the areal perspective by collecting data from one small region. Materials and Methods The material for both case studies is the Register of Ancient sites in Finland and all available information like research reports and listed finds that are linked to the register via Finnish Heritage Agency’s web portal. The first case study aims to find all archaeological sites that have a connection to Kiukainen culture (Soisalo and Roiha 2022). The Kiukainen culture was the end phase of the Stone Age Finland and it is known for Kiukainen pottery. The challenge in this case study was the missing information in the Register of Ancient sites. The site description or linked lists of finds don’t always mention pottery type or other important details that could be used to collect the data from one cultural phase. Identifying pottery first manually from the collections was the only reliable method that could confirm the connection between the site and its cultural context. The second case study focuses on a small region including three municipalities in East Tavastia (Itä-Häme). The area is known for many Iron-Aged sites so that period was chosen for detailed mapping of different site types in the area. The Register of Ancient sites has very structured construction where every site has the same information: main class (level of protection), municipality, period, main type, subtype, underwater (yes or no), name and identification number. This tight structure limits the search because there are no other free search options and the same problem is in the vector data because it follows the same structure as a table. Also, the data includes many mistakes in the period section, site types and subtypes. In this study, more detailed information was collected for all the sites in the area by giving every site new keywords. First, the list of all sites in that area was exported in table form from the vector data. Then new columns were added to the table for keywords and the year when the last field study at the site was done. Those keywords were collected for every site manually by reading all available information about the sites, finds and previous research. The date of the last field study was also collected at the same time while searching keywords for the sites. Results In the first case study all together 99 sites were found that have confirmed connection to the Kiukainen culture. However, it must be noted that only the sites that have been excavated could be confirmed with this method. The total amount of Kiukainen sites in Finland is likely much higher. The sites that have been found via survey without excavating or without finding the pottery were not included since the chosen method was identifying pottery. Another challenge was missing information and biases in the data. Many sites were excavated years ago, and the quality of the research is poor. Especially missing C14-datings were giving problems because it was impossible to evaluate which sites are simultaneous. In the second case study, the preliminary results are promising. By classifying the sites with keywords, it is possible to find much more detailed information about the Iron-Age sites in the chosen area. Using keywords as a search option increases the data reusability remarkably, but it doesn’t solve the problem of missing information, poor data quality or poor research. Mistakes in the site type or dating section are giving problems with current search options. Also, mistakes in the coordinates seem to be common and that should also be taken into account with the data reuse. Discussion To increase archaeological data reuse, the data should be also findable. The Finnish Heritage Agency’s data is quite accessible, but not so findable. The Register of Ancient sites and other services alongside the register are missing proper search tools. The structure of the register only allows very limited search options like site type, name or dating. Another issue is missing data or poor research quality. If the fieldwork is done even today with minimum resources and without using any analyzing methods like C14 dating or other basic analyzing methods, it affects the data reusability a considerable amount. Discussions about archaeological data reuse, the quality of the archaeological field research and FAIR principles are needed in Finnish archaeology. References Kulttuuriympäristön paikkatietoaineistot. 2022. Accessed October 14, 2022. https://www.museovirasto.fi/en/services-and-guidelines/data-systems/kulttuuriympaeristoen-tietojaerjestelmae/kulttuuriympaeristoen-paikkatietoaineistot Muinaisjäännösrekisteri. 2022. Accessed October 14, 2022. https://www.kyppi.fi/palveluikkuna/mjreki/read/asp/r_default.aspx Soisalo, Janne, and Johanna Roiha. 2022. "Kiukainen Culture Site Locations—Reflections from the Coastal Lifestyle at the End of the Stone Age" Land 11, no. 9: 1606. https://doi.org/10.3390/land11091606 |
52 | |||||||
53 | |||||||
54 | |||||||
55 | 14 | 14:20 | The challenges of structuring / structured data | 73 | Evelyn Curl ( Archaeology Data Service ) | High Speed 2 vs Unpath'd Waters: Keeping large projects FAIR? | The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is an accredited digital repository for archaeological and cultural heritage data that was founded in 1996. Over the past 26 years, the ADS has accumulated over 33 TB of data from more than 4 million files. Two recent projects that the ADS has been a part of include the large rail infrastructure project High Speed 2 (HS2) and Unpath’d Waters, an AHRC funded programme, which aims to unite the UK’s maritime collections under one banner. With both of these projects, the idea of reuse has been at the forefront for how we should disseminate the data generated in these projects. The nature of the High Speed 2 project means that much of the data is being deposited with the ADS quite some time after creation, and after being passed through multiple hands. This means that the risk of corruption and general loss of knowledge about the data is high, which could have implications for its reuse value which has to be mitigated. Another concern is a lack of use and general awareness of open source software to not only create data, but to access it at the other end. For example, the software originally used to create the LIDAR 3D laser scan data from the HS2 project is not open access, so the proprietary data files being provided to the ADS risk data loss during the archiving and dissemination process. For Unpath’d Waters, the data sets supplied can provide a great deal of valuable information about our maritime past but not all were catalogued and stored in a way that data could be easily extrapolated from it for reuse. Some of the data takes the form of PDF scans which are suboptimal for preservation and reuse of this data type. The databases across the different partners within UNPATH also contained varying terminologies for similar features or objects, for example one partner may use the specific term ‘schooner’ for a wreck while another partner’s database may simply use ‘sailing ship’. This causes problems when a person searching for the same wreck across different databases, chooses to search for ‘schooner’ and therefore does not find the same ship recorded under ‘sailing ship’ or vice versa. This research provides two case studies of large projects amassing over 30 TB of raw data from multiple data collectors and provides examples for how things we have learned can be applied to other projects of equal size or smaller to allow for better reuse. This paper will discuss some of the challenges we have faced in aggregating data, and present some of the research opportunities it has enabled. We will demonstrate how we have been able to create new and reuse existing databases and spatial searches, such as the ARIADNE infrastructure architecture. Further, we will discuss ideas that we were unable to achieve and limitations we had due to the data itself. Vast-Lab. “ARIADNE portal.” Last modified 2022. https://portal.ariadne-infrastructure.eu/ Richards, J.D. (2002) "Digital Preservation and Access", in European Journal of Archaeology 5, 343-366. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/146195702761692347 Richards, J.D. (2017) Twenty Years Preserving Data: A View from the United Kingdom, Advances in Archaeological Practice. Cambridge University Press, 5(3), pp. 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1017/aap.2017.11 |
56 | Teagan Zoldoske ( Archaeology Data Service ) | ||||||
57 | Jamie Geddes ( Archaeology Data Service ) | ||||||
58 | |||||||
59 | 15 | 14:40 | The challenges of structuring / structured data | 275 | Alphaeus Lien-Talks ( University of York, Historic England, Archaeology Data Service ) | How FAIR is bioarchaeological data: with a particular emphasis on making archaeological science data reusable | Bioarchaeology, including the study of ancient DNA, osteoarchaeology, paleopathology, palaeoproteomics, stable isotopes and zooarchaeology, is producing ever-increasing amounts of data due to advancements in molecular biology, technology and publishing techniques. These studies are often invaluable in the analysis of the lives of human ancestors. As archaeology is a destructive process, and the data itself is generated from a finite amount of material, bioarchaeological data is of paramount importance but is currently not always easily Reusable. To ensure the long-term Reusability of this data, a possible route is to ensure that the data is FAIR. The focus of this research was to investigate this need as well as potential strategies to ensure that the data produced and curated by bioarchaeology is Accessible and Reusable to academics, researchers and the general public. Ultimately, this thesis aimed to identify the extent to which bioarchaeological data is Reusable. It is important to stress here that ethical considerations are considered throughout this process, building a foundation from the statement “as open as possible, as closed as necessary” (Landi, et al., 2020). Methods and materials The current practice of bioarchaeologists was analysed and compared to previous projects, data curation policies and developments in digital archaeology to establish the extent of reuse potential. To achieve this, firstly the emerging fields of bioarchaeology and digital archaeology were reviewed chronologically. These specifically were the causal effect of data publishing, data management plans, recent platforms that facilitate reuse and the advancements that make the reuse of data more important. This was epitomised by the E-RIHS D.5.3 Data Curation Policy that arose from Saving European Archaeology from the Digital Dark Age 2020 (Wright and Richards, 2020). This review made it possible to understand more about what is required for data produced in bioarchaeology to become FAIR, and thus create a better data community. Secondly, a Needs Analysis was performed to gain more insight into the current practice of bioarchaeologists and their data. The primary methodology was the emailing of an online questionnaire to bioarchaeology specialists, principally in the UK, as well as the rest of Europe and the United States of America, as this is where most institutions are situated. The questionnaire investigated the current procedures of specialists from conception to preservation in terms of their potential for reuse, including questions on why they deposit data, in which format and data type, and where. It also included questions drawn up by the best practice guides to understand to what level current procedures meet the suggested requirements set by Wright and Richards in the E-RIHS D.5.3 (ibid). Further, it investigated various techniques to make data Reusable, such as a more uniform metadata standard, information about the primary data collection process, a single repository for bioarchaeological data, and the linking of specialist reports to the original field data. It also investigated the potential use of paradata. The data from this Needs Analysis revealed current strategies in bioarchaeology for data use and reuse. This was carried out using ethical guidance from the University of York’s Archaeology Department. As a result of these two components, this research provided a greater understanding of the extent to which data created in bioarchaeology can be reused, and identified aspects to be altered or improved in order to provide greater opportunities for reuse. Results Through a Needs Analysis, it was discovered that the reuse of bioarchaeological data is considered important and that there is already extensive reuse between each bioarchaeology subdiscipline. Nonetheless, currently, there is no standardised process for data creation through to deposition. As a result, this wealth of information is processed in a variety of different ways to different levels, creating a range of data types, deposited in a variety of places, with different levels of Open Access and copyright even within a specialism. These results can be broken down into the individual elements that are argued to constitute the FAIR data principles for bioarchaeology. For Findability, the majority of specialisms used ORCiDs, with the exception of osteoarchaeology and paleopathology. As regards Persistent Identifiers, only aDNA and palaeoproteomics used them. As a result, the level of Findability is not high, and as such, more must be done to ensure that data is discoverable for reuse. Data was relatively Accessible with almost all specialisms making their data Open Access and ensuring that the raw data is Accessible, with the exception of paleopathology. The most common place of deposition was a published report. As a result, the level of Accessibility is limited, meaning that data may not be attainable for reuse. Interoperability is arguably the aspect which needs the most attention. Almost no specialisms believe there is an appropriate metadata schema available, with palaeoproteomics and aDNA (single specialism) being the exception. The most common data type was PDF and published fully processed. As such, it is difficult to link bioarchaeological data with other resources. As regards Reusability, all specialisms make over 50% of their data available without copyright and this contributed to its reuse. Nonetheless, only aDNA and osteoarchaeology systematically document their data. This would suggest that, overall, data is partially Reusable. Discussion It is clear from these results that data is not consistent between and within individual specialisms. As such strategies must be developed to increase the Reusabilty of these datasets. The first and most important argument here is the need for a standardised data management procedure for all elements of bioarchaeology. This standardisation will require systematic changes and as such data training and communities are needed to be created within each of the specialisms to ensure that strategies are created by domain experts with an overarching body to ensure that strategies are also consistent between the different specialisms. This would help to ensure that data reuse is still encouraged and possible despite the requirements of individual needs. Further hypothetical ideas include creation of a standardised persistent identifier and the creation of a federated search interface building upon the work of Talks (2019). References Alphaeus Talks, 2019. “An exploration of NLP and NER for enhanced search in osteoarchaeological and palaeopathological textual resources” (undergraduate thesis, University of York). Landi, A, Thompson, M, Giannuzzi, V, Bonifazi, F, Labastida, I, Santos, LOB da S and Roos, M. 2020 The “A” of FAIR – As Open as Possible, as Closed as Necessary. Data Intelligence 2(1–2): 47–55. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/dint_a_00027. Wright, H, and Richards, J. 2020. D.5.3 Data Curation Policy. E-RIHS PP. |
60 | |||||||
61 | |||||||
62 | |||||||
63 | 17 | 15:00 | The people who use or have a stake in the data | 335 | Claire Boardman ( University of York ) | Urban Deep Mapping: The Potential for Meaning Making and Social Benefit in Urban Archive Reuse | In comparison with their historic cores or modern outer suburbs, the historic development of town and city planning has acted to whitewash the deep histories of inner-urban neighbourhoods; both architecturally under the dense, repetitive late 19th / early 20th century ‘worker housing’ and, as population churn increases, within civic memory. With no statutory protection or requirement for preservation via record at the time of building and little redevelopment since this hinterland presents as a ‘sterile ring’ within the historic environment record. Without being physically or consciously visible and therefore cognitively and emotionally accessible, the active role heritage can play in the daily meaning and sense-making practices that are the connective tissue of any community is negated. Though elusive, there remain traces of deeper inner-urban pasts scattered across the city’s archives, collections, memories, and myths. This paper presents recent community-based research completed in two York, UK neighbourhoods. Using curated sets of collection/archival meta-data, engagement with each neighbourhood’s Past is approached through the varying points of view of four distinct neighbourhood stakeholder groups or ‘communities within communities’: long term residents (including members of local heritage groups), recently arrived migrants, temporary residents (students) and frequent visitors/commuters. Through a designed intervention, it explores the potential of institutional, community and personal archival content, participatory interpretation and place-based digital storytelling to integrate auto- and geo-biographies and return lost urban pasts to contemporary neighbourhood consciousness. In this way, it challenges existing place histories and disrupts individual and communal ‘sense of place’, while simultaneously creating increased opportunities for new people-place connections. |
64 | |||||||
65 | |||||||
66 | |||||||
67 | 18 | 15:20 | The people who use or have a stake in the data | 342 | Eljas Oksanen (University of Helsinki) | Semantic Computing Solutions for Opening Archaeological Citizen Science Data | This paper presents the interdisciplinary research project DigiNUMA that investigates challenges and solutions in data management and dissemination of pan-European Cultural Heritage, with a specific citizen science focus on opening this data to members of the public (Oksanen et al 2022). The project develops a new model for harmonising national and international archaeological datasets for Digital Humanities (DH) analysis as well as public dissemination through Linked Open Data (LOD). DigiNUMA answers current challenges and opportunities created by the digitisation of society: 1) The need for digital solutions in Cultural Heritage management stemming from the vastly increased amount of archaeological museum/collections record information generated by the public, with particular reference to the growing number of archaeological finds recovered by metal-detecting and other public finders in European countries. Finland and the UK will be discussed as case studies. 2) The pan-European need to develop an internationally operable and harmonised LOD infrastructure for using Cultural Heritage data from different countries in research. 3) Increasing the accessibility of Cultural Heritage data among different audiences, including outside the scientific community through the use of innovative LOD and semantic computing data services. METHODS AND MATERIALS. DigiNUMA is developing the CoinSampo semantic web application that extends the FindSampo framework (Hyvönen et al 2021), Sampo model (https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/applications/sampo), and the new FindSampo system (see https://loytosampo.fi) into a transnational technical solution for Cultural Heritage data management and dissemination. The functionalities of the data services and analytical applications in development (e.g. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis, statistical analyses, network analysis) are being tested using the rich and complex numismatic data from Finland (Finnish National Museum) and the UK (Portable Antiquities Scheme in England and Wales (PAS) data at the British Museum). The project targets coin finds obtained from Finnish and English digital archives, because coins are by far the most numerous object-type reported by the members of the public the to the national finds reporting schemes, the data is often precise in terms of its dating and place of manufacture making it suitable for DH analysis, and because coins move around internationally and can be found in different collections, recording and reflecting historical exchanges that are relevant to wider European audiences. As part of this semantic computing research DigiNUMA joins the undertaking to develop infrastructure for Cultural Heritage data management and dissemination in Finland based on ontologies extracted from the classifications and typologies used for describing Cultural Heritage artefacts. The project examines the potential offered by transnational data harmonisation strategies in developing digital heritage services. Ontological work will be complemented by user experience research on public heritage portals, in order to develop optimal solutions for structuring and disseminating heritage data. RESULTS. In response to the challenges outline above, DigiNUMA has produced (1) ontological Finnish cultural heritage data related to coin finds; (2) new internationally relevant research on models suitable for heritage services for numismatic data, with direct relevance for all archaeological data; (3) the CoinSampo semantic cultural heritage data demonstrator, for searching, learning and analysing about numismatic materials (see https://seco.cs.aalto.fi/projects/diginuma). DISCUSSION. This paper will investigate digital numismatic collections management challenges and potential solutions using digitised coin data from the National Museum of Finland as well as data from the PAS as a case study. Both of these datasets are largely generated by public finders, necessitating the adoption of citizen science perspectives to managing and opening Cultural Heritage data. Here, as in many European countries, archaeological citizen science (metal-detected) data is owned by museums and public heritage institutions. We will discuss digital heritage challenges that stem from combining this new data with heterogenous older catalogues and data, and in designing sustainable solutions that serve the needs of institutional collections management. We will present the current results of the project, which aims to develop a new Finnish public data service for numismatic heritage through data harmonisation and LOD principles in concordance with the principles of pan-European undertakings such as Nomisma.org and ARIADNEplus. The possibilities that such technological platforms offer for deploying digital citizen science/crowd-sourcing data enhancement internationally, as well as their potential of assisting in museum collections management, will be discussed. The project is developing the dedicated semantic portal and data service CoinSampo for numismatic coin finds in Finland in order to allow data and the possibilities for powerful data analysis methods to be opened up to the public. Most online Cultural Heritage data services allow objects to be examined only in the traditional catalogue format (i.e. individually record by record), meaning that larger patterns and structures in the finds data is accessible only to professional researchers in possession specialised training in complex software such as R or dedicated GIS programs. CoinSampo incorporates fast and easy analytical tools as a part of an integrated search-and-analysis feedback process of sieving through the data in the portal, opening up the possibilities for anyone without DH background - whether academics, heritage professionals or citizen scientists - to engage in creating new information and in learning about the past. Cultural heritage belongs to all, both to citizens and the researchers. This project seeks to enhance the possibilities for new knowledge discovery for a wider audience of interested participants. REFERENCES. Oksanen, Eljas, Rantala, Heikki, Tuominen, Jouni, Lewis, Michael, Wigg-Wolf, David, Ehrnsten, Frida, and Eero Hyvönen. 2022. “Digital Humanities Solutions for Pan-European Numismatic and Archaeological Heritage Based on Linked Open Data.” Proceedings of the 6th Digital Humanities in Nordic and Baltic Countries Conference (DHNB 2022): 353-61. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. Hyvönen, Eero, Rantala, Heikki, Ikkala, Esko, Koho, Mikko, Tuominen, Jouni, Anafi, Babatunde, Thomas, Suzie, Wessman, Anna, Oksanen, Eljas, Rohiola, Ville, Kuitunen, Jutta, and Minna Ryyppö. 2021. “Citizen Science Archaeological Finds on the Semantic Web: The FindSampo Framework.” Antiquity 95: 1-7. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2021.87. Rantala, Heikki, Oksanen, Eljas, and Eero Hyvönen. 2022. “Harmonizing and Using Numismatic Linked Data in Digital Humanities Research and Application Development: Case DigiNUMA.” The Semantic Web. ESWC 2022: 26-30. Springer. |
68 | Heikki Rantala (Aalto University) | ||||||
69 | Eero Hyvonen (Aalto University and University of Helsinki) | ||||||
70 | |||||||
71 | 19 | 15:40 | Discussion | None | All session participants | ||
72 | Break | 16:00 | |||||
73 | 20 | 16:30 | Reflecting on the whole | 67 | Rimvydas Lauzikas ( Vilnius University Faculty of Communication ) | The understanding of re-use and barriers to re-use of archaeological data. The quality in use methodological approach | Over the last decade, innovation has centred on making archaeological data more interoperable, both to increase the discoverability of data through integrated cross-search, and to facilitate knowledge creation by combining data in new ways. The emerging research challenge of the next decade is optimising archaeological data for re-use and defining what constitutes good practice around re-use. For those, the important issue is the coordinate information collection to understand the current state-of-the-art regarding the use, re-use, good practices and barriers to re-use of archaeological data. The aim of the research was to understand how to optimise archives and interfaces to maximise the use and re-use of archaeological data and explore how archaeological archives can better respond to user needs. The research focus was on (i) reusing digital archaeological archives only; (ii) orientation to content usability and reusability; (iii) focus on a user-oriented approach; (iv) orientation to professional users (archaeologists). The members of the research group decided to adopt the quality in use conceptual approach for this study. Quality in use is described as "the degree to which a product or system can be used by specific users to meet their needs to achieve specific goals with effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, and freedom from risk in specific contexts of use" (ISO/IEC 2016). The research methodology is based on the SQuaRE (System and Software Quality Requirements and Evaluation) model, represented in the ISO/IEC 25000 standards series (ISO/IEC 2017). The quality in use metric for investigation of re-use and barriers to re-use of archaeological data were adopted from the standardized measures measurement functions and methods of ISO/IEC 25022:2016 (ISO/IEC 2016). On this background created a methodological model composed of 5 characteristics (Effectiveness, Efficiency, Satisfaction, Context coverage and Usability) with 14 measures (Task completeness, Objectives achievement, Task time, Cost-effectiveness, Overall satisfaction, Satisfaction with features, User trust in the system, data and paradata, User pleasure, Physical comfort, Context completeness, Flexible context of use and User guidance completeness). The methodology was tested with specific Contexts of use (Using cases), oriented to a specific professional archaeologist user with the specific professional goal of data re-use. There created three user cases, related to archives of 3D pottery data; radiocarbon data, and GIS data. A specific user-friendly environment was developed for this research. The main result of the testing pilot study proves that the methodology is working and could be used for full-size research. This conference paper will present the methodology of application of the quality in use approach for the measurement of the quality of archaeological digital archives, and the result of a testing pilot study on this. Acknowledgements: Authors are members of Working Group 4 of SEADDA - Saving European Archaeology from the Digital Dark Age (COST Action CA18128), and acknowledge financial support by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology – COST Programme. The authors are grateful to the members of COST SEADDA WG4 for constructive discussions, questions, ideas and input into the preparation of the presented methodology. References: 1. ISO/IEC. 2016. “ISO/IEC 25022:2016(E). Systems and Software Engineering - Systems and Software Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) - Measurement of Quality in Use”. International Organization for Standardization. https://www.iso.org/standard/35746.html. 2. ISO/IEC. 2017. “ISO/IEC 25010:2011. Systems and Software Engineering — Systems and software Quality Requirements and Evaluation (SQuaRE) — System and software quality models”. International Organization for Standardization. https://www.iso.org/standard/35733.html. |
74 | Kristy-Lee Seaton ( University of York ) | ||||||
75 | Holly Wright ( University of York ) | ||||||
76 | Keith May ( Historic England ) | ||||||
77 | Peter McKeague ( Historic Environment Scotland ) | ||||||
78 | Vera Moitinho ( Austrian Academy of Sciences ) | ||||||
79 | 21 | 16:50 | Reflecting on the whole | 293 | Holly Wright ( University of York ) | Reuse and the Archaeology Data Service | The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is a national archive for archaeological data in the UK (archaeologydataservice.ac.uk. Founded in 1996, the mission of the ADS has always been to support research, learning and teaching with free, high quality and dependable digital resources, but much has changed over the last 25+ years. While our mission remains the same, how we understand the nature of the support we provide has become much more complex. This has become particularly notable due to adoption across the research data landscape of the FAIR Principles; that data must be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. The ADS has been working to increase compliance with the FAIR Principles, but there is still much to do. One key aspect of making the data we hold more FAIR has been thinking holistically about our workflows. One can argue that the ADS spent 25+ years making data Findable and Accessible, and considerable progress was made over the last 10 years to understand and implement Interoperability, but we were not equally engaged with how Reusable the data was. We needed to consider the four Principles equally. So much effort was necessary to make progress with F, A and I, it is only now that we are beginning to substantively understand the importance of R, despite F, A and I being of little use without it. This paper will discuss the challenge of engaging with Reuse by a Core Trust Seal accredited digital archive for archaeological data, when our primary remit and practical workflows are necessarily more focussed on preservation. It will explore how we are working to expand and change our understanding of Reuse through our participation in the TEtrARCHs project (tetrarchs.org), and how we are looking forward to another 10 years of progress and new challenges as we work to better put the R in FAIR for the archaeological data we hold. |
80 | |||||||
81 | |||||||
82 | 22 | 17:10 | Reflecting on the whole | 103 | Jeremy Huggett ( University of Glasgow ) | Friction, Stiction, and Maybe Some Fiction: Travels and Travails in Digital Data | Digital practice is increasingly embedded in archaeological practice with access to rapidly expanding quantities of digital materials alongside the development of digital infrastructures that organise, structure, and deliver these materials. Indeed, we are told that digital technologies are now as common in archaeology as a trowel or any other tool (e.g., Antonijević 2016, 49). On the one hand, this digital environment and its associated tools can be seen as providing a convenient means of speeding up practice while leaving that practice essentially unchanged. On the other hand, practice may be radically transformed through the potential of the digital to alter space, time, memory, and how we create and communicate knowledge through introducing new ways of seeing and working with data, and new control and access points. Consequently, these may change our relationship with our means for interpreting the past and arguably with the past itself (c.f Hodder and Beckingham 2022, 1299), which should demand a critical examination of this relationship, although the effects of this access are rarely discussed (although see Hacıgüzeller et al. 2021; Huggett 2022, for example). The digital infrastructures that archaeology is increasingly reliant upon provide access to large bodies of data through the use of metadata: it is the metadata catalogues that are searched, and the results retrieved are based on those metadata. The investigation of an archaeological research question is therefore governed by this high-level metadata summary and indeed, often stops at this point, using the derived metadata in studies using simple distribution plots according to period or type, for instance. Even in more extensive and elaborate analyses employing data mining and machine learning, there is a tendency to focus on similar high-level data (artefact categories, time periods, locations etc.) (e.g., Brandsen et al. 2022). This is not to deny the value of operating on high-level data, but it is important to recognise that such analyses operate at a considerable remove from the original, primary record, assuming it is available within the digital infrastructure at all. To an extent, there is nothing new in this situation: it has ever been the case that much archaeological research is built upon secondary data (primary or directly observed data produced by others but capable of reuse), if not tertiary data (reworked data derived from the prior analyses of others) (e.g., Huggett 2022, 280). Rather than remaining at this secondary or tertiary (or greater) level, the challenge has always been to track back to the original data in its least processed state so as to validate the data used, but the complexities involved mean that this step may often not be feasible, whether through geographical or temporal distance, for example. In a digital environment, it might be expected that this task would be considerably simplified; however, other than the ability to review digital data from the desktop rather than travel to disparate physical archives, it is often no easier to unpack digital data than it was in the analogue days: data in digital archives are just as disconnected from their origins as data in analogue archives are. Even if the benefit of digital environments is perceived as no more than speeding up existing practice, it might be expected that digital access would make it easier to retrace how data has journeyed into its current form. The question addressed here is whether any of this matters? It will be argued that this is important because approaches to digital data otherwise tend to simplify rather than reflect the actual complexity of the data, and in the process, underestimate its true value and real potential. The multi-layered nature and origin of archaeological data is reflected in the journeys from initial observation and recognition of key features and their selective recording, through their interpretation and re-interpretation, drafting and re-drafting into their most recent destination, be that a database, a written report, or a monograph, for example. This interleaving of data stages is a key part of the complexity of archaeological data and an understanding of how data have travelled between each of these stages is key to having confidence in the origin, extraction, and (re)use of the data in a robust and reliable way. This paper will investigate the series of frictions that influence and limit our access to complexity. Critically, it will argue that our digital tools should make it easier to capture the data journeys so that our analyses can better reflect the reality of underlying data and avoid misunderstandings and misuse in our reuse. References Antonijević, Smiljana. 2015. Amongst Digital Humanists: An Ethnographic Study of Digital Knowledge Production. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Brandsen, Alex, Suzan Verberne, Karsten Lambers, and Milco Wansleeben. 2022. ‘Can BERT Dig It? Named Entity Recognition for Information Retrieval in the Archaeology Domain’. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage 15 (3): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3497842. Hacıgüzeller, Piraye, James Stuart Taylor, and Sara Perry. 2021. ‘On the Emerging Supremacy of Structured Digital Data in Archaeology: A Preliminary Assessment of Information, Knowledge and Wisdom Left Behind’. Open Archaeology 7 (1): 1709–30. https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2020-0220. Hodder, Jake, and David Beckingham. 2022. ‘Digital Archives and Recombinant Historical Geographies’. Progress in Human Geography 46 (6): 1298–1310. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325221103603. Huggett, Jeremy. 2022. ‘Data Legacies, Epistemic Anxieties, and Digital Imaginaries in Archaeology’. Digital 2 (2): 267–95. https://doi.org/10.3390/digital2020016. |
83 | |||||||
84 | |||||||
85 | |||||||
86 | 23 | 17:30 | Discussion | None | All session participants | ||
87 | |||||||
88 | |||||||
89 | |||||||
90 | |||||||
91 | |||||||
92 | |||||||
93 | |||||||
94 | |||||||
95 | |||||||
96 | |||||||
97 | |||||||
98 | |||||||
99 | |||||||
100 | |||||||