Report: Arizona State University

the Digital Archaeological Record
Arizona State University’s effort has included intensive work on the National Science Foundation-funded implementation of a prototype digital information infrastructure, called tDAR for "the Digital Archaeological Record." This effort is led by Professors Keith Kintigh and K. Selçuk Candan with assistance of Professors Katherine Spielmann, Margaret Nelson, Hasan Savulcu, Subbarao Kambhampati, Dr. Huiping Cao, and graduate assistants Yan Qi, Mallorie Hatch, and Ben Schoville.

The tDAR proposal was submitted to NSF before the archaeoinformatics.org proposal to the Mellon Foundation, but was funded after the formation of archaeoinformatics.org.  As a consequence, the NSF-funded tDAR prototype implementation grant has proceeded in parallel with the archaeoinformatics planning grant. The design of tDAR has been substantially influenced, but not dictated by, archaeoinformatics.org discussions.  While the Mellon Foundation is not directly funding the development of tDAR, tDAR is very much directed to addressing the goals of archaeoinformatics.org and illustrates of one possible set of software design decisions.

While tDAR’s focus is on systematically collected datasets (databases), as implemented, tDAR readily archives text and images.  The particular challenge that it addresses is the semantic integration of archaeological data collected by different projects using inconsistent coding schemes. tDAR is intended as an open-source, Internet accessible foundation for a global archaeological information infrastructure. In its full implementation, tDAR aims to provide integrated, cross-project, sustainable, Internet access to dynamic archives of archaeological, physical anthropological, and environmental data that will advance our ability to conduct synthetic and comparative research and preserve the long-term utility and accessibility of archaeological data. tDAR incorporates some elements of geosciences' GEON platform. While tDAR is based at ASU, its servers reside at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. More information is available at the project web site, http://tdar.org.

ASU is now in the final phases of internally testing the soon-to-be-public beta release of Version 1 of tDAR, which will be demonstrated in Santa Fe.  Version 1’s web interface provides the ability to upload information resources in a variety of database, text, and image formats.  Web registration of an information resource includes not just uploading the raw file, but also an interfacse that facilitates the entry of the detailed metadata needed to the resource.  Part of the metadata acquisition is a facility to  attach “coding rules” to databases, providing translations of numeric codes into searchable natural language labels.  It also provides metadata and information resource content based search and, of course, download capabilities.  Relation databases (and spreadsheets) are maintained in their original forms but also converted to postgreSQL so that they can be effectively maintained and readily searched. The next phase of tDAR’s implementation focuses on semantically based information integration capabilities.  The semantics will be actualized (with the assistance of a groups of experts) for subdomain of archaeology (archaeological fauna) with numerous, diverse datasets from two areas of the US. 

A poster on tDAR was presented at the recent Southwest Symposium, attended by approximately 250 Southwestern Archaeologists.

Mexico Case Study
Under the current, Mellon Foundation grant, archaeoinformatics.org will develop a proposal to fund the implementation of an archaeological information infrastructure. An important component of the planned proposal will be the development of a number of “case studies” intended to persuasively demonstrate the research value of the system through their role in advancing research on substantive archaeological questions. Archaeological research in central Mexico has been identified as an excellent candidate for such a case study. This case study would be driven by a compelling research question, would have both international and multi-institutional participation, and would have a large component of legacy data.
ASU is responsible for drafting a design and preparing a budget for such a case study to be included in that proposal.  To this end, with funding from the Mellon Foundation grant, Dr. Michelle Elliott (a recent ASU PhD), is beginning to interact with Mexican, US, and other International scholars working in Central Mexico (construed broadly).   This effort has several objectives:

• to introduce these scholars to the archaeoinformatics initiative;
• to identify potential partners for a implementation case study;
• to work toward development of a compelling substantive topic and identify potential leaders and participants;
• through discussion and demonstrations of TDAR or other existing tools, to elicit special concerns or opportunities presented by international collaborations;
• to attempt to identify existing databases and unpublished reports (including informes) that these scholars would be willing to make publicly available (a special efforty will go into scholars that are retired or are soon to retire);
• where possible, to assist these scholars in registering datasets in tDAR.

In addition, Prof. Ben Nelson has agreed to make publicly available his substantial database that documents his many years of work at the site of La Quemada in Zacatecas, Mexico.  With Mellon Foundation funding, Vincent Schiavitti (in consultation with Nelson) will be registering the complex La Quemada database with complete metadata in tDAR.  This will not only make publicly available a major archaeological dataset, it can be used by Elliott in demonstrating the value of contributing data and documents to an information infrastructure.

SAA Forum
For the upcoming Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Vancouver, BC (March 26-30), Kintigh has organized a SAA Board-Sponsored forum designed to heighten engagement of the broader discipline in the objectives of the archaeoinformatics.org initiative.  Participants include the Archaeoinformatics.org steering committee members plus Eric Kansa (University of California at Berkeley), Tom McCulloch (Advisory Council for Historic preservation), Fraser Neiman (Monticello), Charles Niquette (Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc.), and Julian Richards (University of York). 
Digital Antiquity: Planning an Information Infrastructure for Archaeology
Abstract.  The utility of archaeological data is severely diminished by its inaccessibility. Archaeology needs to take transformative steps to develop an information infrastructure that can provide Internet access to archaeological research documents, databases, and images. This infrastructure will require software development, a management structure and financial model, and real commitment by practicing archaeologists.  Archaeoinformatics.org has been funded to develop a plan for such an information infrastructure.  This forum offers an opportunity for discussion of the desirable capabilities of the infrastructure, how it should be managed and funded, and how the discipline can best be engaged in its development and use.