Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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(PSWPC) 200 and the Classics Research Network (CRN), 201 there was not a great deal of <strong>in</strong>terest <strong>in</strong>
whether such a work<strong>in</strong>g paper site should be created for archaeology. One scholar <strong>in</strong>terviewed by
Harley et al. succ<strong>in</strong>ctly described the problem as be<strong>in</strong>g “that archaeology has a culture of ownership of
ideas as property, rather than the culture of a gift economy” (Harley et al. 2010, 81). While
archaeologists most often collaborated on data collection, they rarely coauthored articles, a criticism
that is also often made of classicists.
Nonetheless, the CSHE report also illustrated that for a grow<strong>in</strong>g number of archaeologists the idea of
data shar<strong>in</strong>g as one means of data preservation is ga<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g importance. S<strong>in</strong>ce archaeological sites are
typically destroyed dur<strong>in</strong>g an excavation, scholars highlighted the need to be very meticulous <strong>in</strong>
record<strong>in</strong>g all the necessary <strong>in</strong>formation about data and also revealed that a great deal of “dark data”
from excavations never makes it to f<strong>in</strong>al publication. In other words, the published record and the data
from an excavation are the only surviv<strong>in</strong>g record of an archaeological site <strong>in</strong> many cases. Meckseper
and Warwick also underscore this fact <strong>in</strong> their exploration of XML as a means of publish<strong>in</strong>g
archaeological excavation reports. “Archaeology is a destructive process: the physical rema<strong>in</strong>s <strong>in</strong> the
ground are destroyed through their excavation and lift<strong>in</strong>g of material,” Meckseper and Warwick
confirmed, add<strong>in</strong>g that “the written record and publication have therefore always been seen as
synonymous with the preservation of the archaeological record” (Meckseper and Warwick 2003). Shen
et al. (2008) agreed that for this reason, the digital record<strong>in</strong>g of data at both the plann<strong>in</strong>g and
excavation stages is extremely important, for, as they noted, “unlike many other applications of
<strong>in</strong>formation systems, it simply is not possible to go back and re-check at a later date.”
While many scholars <strong>in</strong>terviewed by the CSHE believed <strong>in</strong> the need to share more data sets they also
lamented the complete lack of standards for shar<strong>in</strong>g and preserv<strong>in</strong>g data. The best-known data model
for archaeology is Archaeological Markup Language (ArchaeoML), an XML schema for
archaeological data (Schloen 2001) that serves as the basis of the XML database of the OCHRE
(Onl<strong>in</strong>e Cultural Heritage Research Environment) project. 202 Based at the University of Chicago,
OCHRE is an Internet database system that has been designed to manage cultural heritage <strong>in</strong>formation.
Accord<strong>in</strong>g to the website, “it is <strong>in</strong>tended for researchers engaged <strong>in</strong> artifactual and textual studies of
various k<strong>in</strong>ds. It is especially suitable (1) for organiz<strong>in</strong>g and publish<strong>in</strong>g the results of archaeological
excavations and surveys and (2) for prepar<strong>in</strong>g and dissem<strong>in</strong>at<strong>in</strong>g philological text editions and
dictionaries.” OCHRE implements a core ontology for cultural heritage <strong>in</strong>formation and uses a “global
schema” to which local schemas of various projects can be mapped to facilitate data <strong>in</strong>tegration. 203 A
number of projects, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g the Chicago Hittite Dictionary 204 and the PFAP, 205 are us<strong>in</strong>g OCHRE to
present their research
The CSHE report also drew attention to the fact that data preservation <strong>in</strong> archaeology is becom<strong>in</strong>g
<strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly problematic because of the need to preserve both analog and digital data, particularly large
amounts of legacy data. 206 Many scholars who were <strong>in</strong>terviewed wanted more <strong>in</strong>stitutional support for
stor<strong>in</strong>g, migrat<strong>in</strong>g, and back<strong>in</strong>g up their data. A similar problem is that while archaeological projects
200 http://www.pr<strong>in</strong>ceton.edu/~pswpc/<strong>in</strong>dex.html
201 http://www.ssrn.com/crn/<strong>in</strong>dex.html
202 http://ochre.lib.uchicago.edu/<strong>in</strong>dex.htm
203 For a good overview of this system and how it compares to the CIDOC-CRM and to tDAR of Digital Antiquity, see
http://ochre.lib.uchicago.edu/<strong>in</strong>dex_files/Page794.htm
204 http://ochre.lib.uchicago.edu/eCHD/
205 http://ochre.lib.uchicago.edu/PFA_Onl<strong>in</strong>e
206 An entire issue of Internet Archaeology <strong>in</strong> 2008 was dedicated to the issue of deal<strong>in</strong>g with legacy data (http://<strong>in</strong>tarch.ac.uk/journal/issue24/<strong>in</strong>dex.html)