Investigating Archaeological Research Questions using a Linked Data framework A presentation given to the Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group, May 2015.

1. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
Linked Geospatial Data for
Archaeological Research
Paul Cripps
University of South Wales, Trefforest, UK
• Hypermedia Research Group
• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Research Group
Archaeogeomancy, Salisbury, UK
http://gstar.archaeogeomancy.net/
InvestigatingArchaeologicalResearchQuestions
usingaLinkedDataframework

2. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
Introduction
• What’s all this then…?
• Linked Data
• Linked Geospatial Data
• GSTAR:
• Resource
• Research workflows
• Research Questions
Earthorama by spdorsey http://flic.kr/p/69C5QD

3. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
What’s all this then…?
• Linked Data
• Publishing framework
• Querying framework
• Links (online) resources together
• Querying across diverse resources
• Uses ontologies as semantic glue
• Based on concepts not terms
• Vocabulary providers  content
• Growing engagement in heritage sector:
• Historic England, Historic Scotland, Archaeology Data
Service, systems developers/designers/architects

4. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
Linked (Geospatial) Data
• LD comprises assertions
• <concept uri><relationship><concept uri>
• <Stonehenge><hasType><henge>
• LGD adds spatial properties, relationships
• <Stonehenge><has depiction><polygon>
• <Stone circle><spatially within><henge>
• Possible to model assertions, evidence,
inference & propagate change

5. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
Interoperating
Graphic from Towards a Collaborative
Strategy for sector information
management (TACOS) seminar,
University of York, May 2014

6. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
ColonisationofBritainLinkedData
Wessex Archaeology, Archaeology Data Service
Linked Data resource built using STELLAR Toolkit including Ordnance Survey Open Data

7. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
GSTAR
• GeoSemantic Technologies for
Archaeological Research
• Doctoral research project
• Investigating LGD for Archaeological Research
• Due for completion April 2016
• Building on:
• core CIDOC CRM (cultural heritage domain
ontology)
• CRMEH extension (archaeology ontology)
• GeoSPARQL (spatial ontology)
• Heritage Data vocabularies (content)
• Ordnance Survey Linked Open Data (content)

8. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
GSTAR – Research workflows
• Current workflow:
• Request data
• Collate & Process
• Concordance
• Produce new,
standalone resource
• Assessment, Analysis
• Snapshot reporting,
narratives
• Archive
• (Repeat…)
• Proposed workflow:
• Consume data
• Assessment, Analysis
• Augment data
• Data driven reporting,
narratives

9. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
GSTAR – Resources
• Study Area: Stonehenge
• Sources:
• Wiltshire HER (c. 2K Monuments; 1K Events;
26K Sources)
• Wiltshire Museums (c. 44K objects)
• Wessex Archaeology archives (20 projects;
trial trenches, fieldwalking, testpits, etc)
• Historic England (designation records)
• Ordnance Survey (Parishes, places, etc)

10. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
GSTAR – Research Questions
• Engage Domain Experts (aka you!)
• Given the available resource:
• Topics?
• Themes?
• Specific Questions?
• Burning Issues?
• Granularity
• Detailed questions, guided by Research
Framework, supported by data
• To form the basis for evaluating GSTAR
resource & workflows

11. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
GSTAR – Research Questions
• Example themes:
• Associations, relationships, patterns:
• Object data: properties, classifications, dating,
locations
• Fieldwork data: features, finds, dating,
locations
• Monument data: properties, classifications,
dating, locations
• Particular focus on spatial elements

12. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
fin
• paul.cripps@southwales.ac.uk
• paul@archaeogeomancy.net
• @pauljcripps
• gstar.archaeogeomancy.net
• hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk
• gis.research.southwales.ac.uk

13. Avebury & Stonehenge Archaeological & Historical Research Group meeting – May 2015
Acknowledgements
• Thanks to:
• University of South Wales – funding, supervision, advice
• Archaeology Data Service – data from their archives
• Wessex Archaeology – data, photographs and images
• Wiltshire Council – access to the Historic Environment Record
(HER) data
• Wiltshire Museums – access to museum collections data
• Personal thanks
• Supervisors/Advisors: Doug Tudhope, Mark Ware, Alex Lohfink
• Research group: Ceri Binding, Andreas Vlachidis, Keith May
• Peers and colleagues: Michael Charno, Chris Brayne, Gerald
Heibel, David Dawson
• Image Credit
• Earthorama by spdorsey http://flic.kr/p/69C5QD