Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway The Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway: fishing data from the pond Jon Bateman and Stuart Jeffrey Archaeology Data Service

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway Julian Richards - ADS Director Stuart Jeffrey - TAG Project Manager for the ADS Catherine Hardman - ADS Collections Development Manager Lei Xia – ADS Applications Developer Jon 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 Dublin Frank McManamon – Executive Director, Digital Antiquity Partners and people

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway But what do what, where and when mean? Contextual terms Need classification Interoperability through mapping to agreed common terms or ontologies Pragmatism

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway Removing barriers Conceptual barriers are often aligned with technical barriers Removing these technical barriers helps to focus on the real conceptual difficulties

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway Single domain granularity PathologicalYes No Probable ButcheredYes No Probable Bone measuredYesMetric Record ID (pointer) No Fusion Prox.FusedNeonate End and Shaft Neonate Epiphysis Sub fusing, fusing line open Sub fusing, fusing line not open Fusing Unfused Unknown Fusion Dist.FusedNeonate End and Shaft Neonate Epiphysis Sub fusing, fusing line open Sub fusing, fusing line not open Fusing Unfused Unknown Dental eruption/wearYesGrantDental Record ID (pointer) PayneDental Record ID (pointer) Other (free text)Dental Record ID (pointer)

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway Thesaurus of Monument Types MIDAS Period List Latitude - Longitude

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway Natural classification User-tagging often cited as an alternative to rigid ontologies Could it supplant classification systems? –Personal –Random –Multitudinous indecipherable systems

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology Gateway NothingEverything Chaotic Structured Curiosities SiteSample The Archive Debris

Jon Bateman Transatlantic Archaeology 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