Planning Preservation for Archaeology Data

These posts will focus on some work I am doing to understand what is involved in preserving and managing archaeology data.  This is not an idle pursuit; I have been tasked to help the Cotsen Institute at UCLA to manage their data. The project does not involve artifacts as these materials have their own management elsewhere.  No, this project focuses on the data that is gathered or created using digital software, equipment and tools. Although I started out with no real understanding of these materials I have learned a lot so far.

Archaeologists collect artifacts, but in some cases the idea is to preserve the artifacts in situ, so digital images, maps, diagrams, and 3-D imaging techniques are used.  Field notes are used to describe the artifacts, sites, features, etc.  There is a really nice set of materials for an online course at Indiana University describing how archaeologists collect data, describe it and go about their research process. http://www.indiana.edu/~arch/saa/matrix/afm/afm_princexc.htm

To begin we held some meetings to go over expectations and ideas.  We identified key faculty and a committee of those interested in preservation issues is to be formed.  Interviews will be held with a group of faculty and Data Curation Profiles will be developed.

In this discipline there has been a fair amount of work on best practices and Guides to Good Practice has been published jointly by the Archaeology Data Service in the U.K. and Digital Antiquity in the U.S.