jon bateman jon.bateman@york.ac.uk transatlantic archaeology gateway the transatlantic archaeology...

Jon Bateman jon.bateman@york.ac.uk

TransatlanticArchaeology

Gateway

The Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway:fishing data from the pondJon Bateman and Stuart JeffreyArchaeology Data Service

Gateway

Aims• The TAG project aims to develop an

infrastructure to support, bring together and enhance digital content funded in the USA & UK

Funding• JISC/NEH Transatlantic Digitisation

Collaboration Grants – Phase 2 Duration• Project Start Date: 1 Oct 2009• Project End Date: 31 Mar 2011

Background

Gateway

Julian Richards - ADS DirectorStuart Jeffrey - TAG Project Manager for the ADS Catherine Hardman - ADS Collections Development Manager Lei Xia – ADS Applications DeveloperJon Bateman – ADS Curatorial Officer

Keith W. Kintigh - Digital Antiquity PI/Prof. of Anthropology Katherine A. Spielmann - Prof. of Anthropology [fauna]Matt Cordial - ASU Libraries Cyberinfrastructure Services [Fedora]Mary Whelan - SU Libraries Cyberinfrastructure Services [Geospatial]Allen Lee - Research Professional/Software John Howard - Head Librarian, University College DublinFrank McManamon – Executive Director, Digital Antiquity

Partners and people

Gateway

To build upon existing web services registries maintained by the ADS for the historic environment sector in Europe and extends these for North American usage. A web services application will then be developed to create a standards-compliant cross-search facility for metadata records held by ADS (for the UK) and tDAR (for the USA)

Work Package One

Gateway

In a second stage a richer and deeper web services cross-search facility will be developed for faunal remains databases in England (UK) and the USA, providing an architecture to enable deep data mining as well as a valuable research tool for archaeologists in the UK and USA.

Work Package Two

Gateway

1. Users can search across repositories held in the US and the UK to locate digital archives using what, where, when criteria (WP1)

2. Users can identify archives that have faunal databases mapped to a common ontology to allow cross searching (WP2)

3. The databases are not held in the same physical location, and need not be in the same hardware/software, nor even have the same field names or attributes

Vision

Gateway

But what do what, where and when mean?

• Contextual terms• Need classification• Interoperability through mapping to agreed

common terms or ontologies• Pragmatism

Gateway

Barriers to knowledge connections

• Epistemological barriers may be technical as well as conceptual

• Establishing common ground can break down geographical boundaries between archaeological data and knowledge

Gateway

Removing barriers

• Conceptual barriers are often aligned with technical barriers

• Removing these technical barriers helps to focus on the real conceptual difficulties

Gateway

How low can you go?

• Distilled top-level classification terms• High-level common ground restricts both the

scope and granularity of the information• Finding common ground in a single domain

(eg faunal remains) increases granularity• Explosion of terms

Gateway

Single domain granularity

Pathological Yes No Probable Butchered Yes No Probable Bone measured Yes Metric Record ID (pointer) No Fusion Prox. Fused Neonate End and Shaft Neonate Epiphysis Sub fusing, fusing line open Sub fusing, fusing line not open Fusing Unfused Unknown Fusion Dist. Fused Neonate End and Shaft Neonate Epiphysis Sub fusing, fusing line open Sub fusing, fusing line not open Fusing Unfused Unknown Dental eruption/wear Yes Grant Dental Record ID (pointer) Payne Dental Record ID (pointer) Other (free text) Dental Record ID (pointer)

Gateway

Descriptive scales and fuzzy terms

• Forced classification can hide scales of difference and similarity– eg date terms mapped to absolute ranges give a

common scale but do nothing to illuminate differences and similarities between the terms/periods

Gateway

Descriptive scales and fuzzy terms

• Mapping terms to high-level ontologies over-clarifies descriptive scales and blurred boundaries– eg Hillfort could be classified as defensive,

domestic or commerical, depending on context and interpretation

– Strict thesaurii + simplified mappings = missed connections

Gateway

Thesaurus of Monument Types

MIDAS Period List

Latitude - Longitude

Gateway

Just another layer

• Multiple classification processes from data creation, through curation, to discovery and use

• Imposed by archaeologists through the epistemological process

• Understanding classification processes key to crossing boundaries

Gateway

Natural classification

• User-tagging often cited as an alternative to rigid ontologies

• Could it supplant classification systems?– Personal– Random– Multitudinous indecipherable systems

Gateway

Nothing Everything

Chaotic

Structured

Curiosities

SiteSample

The Archive

Debris

Gateway

Usefulness

• Classification systems must be distilled to a point where they have meaning across epistemological boundaries

• They are not an end in themselves• They should help answer questions• Understanding their context shapes their use

jon bateman jon.bateman@york.ac.uk transatlantic archaeology gateway the transatlantic archaeology...

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