Archaeological database development: the people and place project

Abstract

This project, funded by ANDS in 2011, will build the platform for a national database of historical archaeological collections, excavated sites and the people connected to those objects and places; to be called the Australian Historical Archaeology Database. Each year archaeologists (both academic and private consultants) excavate tens of thousands of artefacts from historical archaeological sites across Australia. While some states (e.g. Victoria) require catalogues to be prepared in a standard format, the majority of catalogue data are stored in small, standalone spreadsheets or custom-built databases, and few are made freely available. There is no central register of these individual datasets, and many significant collections are simply unknown to archaeological researchers. Between 2001 and 2004, the ARC-Linkage project 'Exploring the Archaeology of the Modern City' (EAMC), led by Murray, created two research databases <http://www.latrobe.edu.au/amc/> which offered, for the first time, a central database of 700,000 artefacts from multiple historical archaeological sites and a companion dataset of historical occupancy data relating to 2200 individuals who occupied those sites. While extensive in their data content, the databases themselves too limited in their structure and require significant design input to make them truly effective tools for managing and sharing historical archaeological data. This project will federate the two EAMC databases, undertake additional data auditing, and seek new datasets from the private, public and tertiary sectors. It will enable researchers to access a vast dataset that is currently unavailable to them, and provide the platform for future datasets to be made freely available in a standardised and timely fashion. Our paper reports progress and will conclude by discussing several significant challenges:- accessing and integrating privately funded research data created for purposes of public compliance and 'future research'; - integrating data from different archival sources, ie artefacts and documents, through the fundamental lynchpins of people and place; - the social/IP challenges of creating a platform for information exchange (online research community) that effectively collates multiple recording systems while respectfully presenting divergent interpretations of those data.