Keith May @Keith_May

English Heritage/Historic England

Paths through the Labyrinth: Finding ways to express data from differing

archaeological recording methodologies to enable cross-search and reuse

Incorporating work by Prof Doug Tudhope, Ceri Binding & Paul Cripps

University of South Wales AHRC funded STAR, STELLAR and SENESCHAL Projects

http://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/star/ http://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/stellar/

http://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/SENESCHAL/

What does this Archaeological Labyrinth look like?

❖ Different Recording Methods

❖ Different Recording Systems

❖ Different Recording Terminologies

❖ Different Software/Hardware systems

❖ Different Research Aims

❖ Different Archaeology on most sites

❖ Different Research outputs/archives

What does this Archaeological Labyrinth look like?

What are we hoping to get out of this Labyrinth?

Answers to Questions & better Narratives about what happened

in the past

Threads & Narratives

❖ CIDOC CRM can help provide semantic threads connecting data

❖ Making explicit the Events that 'thread' the discreet pieces of archaeological information together

❖ Connections between Events recorded in the present

❖ Interpretations made in the present to reconstruct Events in the Past

❖ CRM documents the Relationships (threads) we make connecting those Events

What Paths are available?

❖ CRM-EH maps to CRMarchaeo

❖ CRM-EH developed for Modelling Archaeological processes and systems at EH

❖ Actually can use a smaller/simpler amount of the CRM-EH model for Interoperability across Arch data

❖ E.g. STAR demonstrated feasibility of making separate datasets interoperable using core concepts of CRM-EH

❖ CRMarchaeo has used the same core archaeological concepts

Spatial Coordinates

Findsare deposited in

Groups Samples

are taken from

Phases

Dates/ TimespansPeriods

Investigations

are within

Took Place at

are within

Identifies

Identifies

Identifies

date

datedate

StratigraphicSpatio-Temporal

Relations

Research Objectives

Inform

Simplified Conceptual Model (CRM-EH & CRMarchaeo) for Interoperability between archaeological records

Stratigraphic Units

Threads to Follow

❖ Agreement on Research Questions & Frameworks

❖ Standardised Terms and Vocabs to share and follow

❖ Spatio-Temporal relationships (stratigraphic)

❖ Relationships of Objects to their 4D position of discovery

CRM-EH Excavation Record Data Modelling

• CRM-EH focuses on common ‘core’ Concepts of our Archaeological processes

• Stratigraphic relationships (e.g. Harris matrix) crucial for relating individual records

• Mapped only a Limited degree of the minute archaeological detail to CIDOC CRM

• Different broad categories of contexts (Deposits, Masonry, Timber, etc) handled by separate forms but conceptually modelled together

Stratigraphic & Physical

Relations of Context on recording

form

What about comparing records across different countries?

With thanks to Anja Masur

Further into the Labyrinth

How CRMarchaeo builds on CRM-EH

❖ Mappings now possible between CRM-EH & CRMarchaeo

❖ CRMarchaeo incorporates different Excavation methodologies - not just Single Context Recording Method

❖ CRMsci Extensions for Archaeological Science Methods

❖ Incorporation of Discovery event for Objects/Finds

❖ Development of Stratigraphic relationships to cover Spatio-Temporal reasoning which raises significant opportunities for further research

CRM archaeo

FORTH-ICS March 24, 2014

Excavation Process Unit

A1 Excavation Process Unit

E7 Activity

S11 Amount of Matter

E29 Design or Procedure

P33 used specific technique

P17 was motivated by

E55 Type

P125 used object of type

E55 Type

E55 Type

S20 Physical Feature

AP4 produced surface

Substance: doing Identity: Actor, location, temporal coherence Unity: begin/end (maybe documented) Intentional, Declarative

E55 Type

AP3 excavated

S11 Amount of Matter

AP2 discarded intoAP1 produced

“find Solomon’s Temple”

“a heap”“a basket”

preserved part or total of matter

S22 Segment of Matter

A8 Stratigraphic Unit

AP5 cut

tools

methodology

technique

research question

S10 Material Substantial

“surface”

3D excavated area

for drawings before excavating about where to excavate

segment of Matter that happened to be at the excavated place

AP21 occupied

E55 Type

2

A3 Stratigraphic Interface

AP6 intended to approximate

E53 Place S4 Observation

S19 Encounter EventP9 consist of

P32 used general technique

P32 used general technique

P21 had general purposeAP10 destroyed

Modelling data from other Recording systems

❖ Locus excavation record system derived data

❖ Finds related to Place of discovery

❖ Planum stratigraphic methodology?

❖ Question to audience? In non-single context recording systems how are Stratigraphic relationships stored?

CRM archaeo

FORTH-ICS March 24, 2014

Embedding

A7 Embedding

E18 Physical Thing

E5 Event

AP17 is found by

“state, refinement of position”

“reference space that is relative to the Context Stuff”

“positioning”

AP15 has found object

“the Physical Object has a position at least up to the point of discovery”

A1 Excavation Process Unit

P9 consists of

6

S19 Encounter Event

AP19 is embedding inAP20 is embedding atAP18 is embedding of

A2 Stratigraphic Deposit UnitE53Place

S16 State

Stratigraphic Data Recording and re-use

❖ How many sites record stratigraphic relationships?

❖ Not just used in single context recording method

❖ How are they recorded/stored?

❖ How Archived?

CRM archaeo

FORTH-ICS March 24, 2014

Stratigraphic Genesis

A1 Excavation Process Unit

E7 Activity

A8 Stratigraphic Unit

A3 Stratigraphic Interface

A4 Stratigraphic Genesis S10 Material Substantial

S11 Amount of Matter

AP1 produced

AP7 produced

AP9 took matter from

4

A5 Stratigraphic ModificationS17 Physical Genesis

AP13 has stratigraphic relation

AP8 disturbed

A2 Stratigraphic Volume Unit

AP12 confines

E63 Beginning of Existence S18 Alteration

E18 Physical Thing

AP24 is or contains remains of

AP11 has physical relation

S22 Segment of Matter

A6 Group Declaration EventAP16 assigned attribute to

E13 Attribute Assignment

P141 assigned

AP10 is part of

S20 Physical Feature

Do we have a standard for Re-use of Stratigraphic (Spatio-temporal)

records?

❖ How do people record Strat?

❖ How is Harris Matrix archived?

❖ Kept as images or data?

❖ How readily able to re-use?

❖ Need a standard format for preservation, sharing and and re-use

❖ E.g. Data as CSV can easily convert to RDF/XML for use by semantic technologies e.g. STELLAR outputs

Internet Archaeology Vol 30 (2011) http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue30/tudhope_index.html

STAR project interface for cross-search of CRM Mapped dataRe-use of Stratigraphic Data in Stratigraphic Browser

CRM-EH used Allen Temporal Operators & Stratigraphic relations

• P120: occurs before  (occurs after)

• P114: is equal in time to

• P115: finishes (is finished by)

• P116: starts (is started by)

• P117: occurs during (includes)

• P118: overlaps in time with (is overlapped in time by)

• P119: meets in time with  (is met in time by)

Stratigraphically means "Directly" Below/Before Above/After

But not necessarily Meets in time

Stratigraphic Relations are Spatio-Temporal

Stratigraphic relationships seen in alterations to a brick wall or floor n.b. Does not strictly follow law of superposition

Musivario stratigraphy - based on interpreting the spatio-temporal ordering that the tiles 'must' have been placed in the design

Stratigraphy and CIDOC CRM

❖ Issue - Allen operators limited to Temporal Relations rather than 4D

❖ the 'thickness' (extents) of spatio-temporal boundaries between Phases/Periods may vary due to degree of certainty in other dating methods

❖ we may know there is a gap, or a hiatus interface of uncertain timespan but not the actual extent of that hiatus.

Hypothetical Stratigraphic Sequence represented as Spatio-Temporal Events

Overlaps in Time

Overlaps in Time

Overlaps in Time

Pit fill Meets in Time

With Thanks to Paul Cripps

During life cycle of pit

Start of Pit Feature

Finish of use of Pit

Finish of existence of Pit

Juxtaposition of Fuzzy Spatio-Temporal Relations

With Thanks to Papadakis, Doerr & Plexousakis

Some Requirements for better Matrix data re-use

❖ Can we incorporate additional - often implicit - spatio-temporal relations in our Phasing methods?

❖ Is Harris Matrix sufficient to model all the spatio-temporal relationships?

❖ New tools should help in both expressing known and uncertain spatio-temporal relations in the data

❖ But also should preserve matrix records for re-use

So is there a Way out?

Conclusions & Challenges

• Need to consider more explicit ways of expressing Spatio-Temporal relations within archaeological records to address Research Question 'threads'

• Need new ways to visualise the complexity of the Spatio-Temporal relations - extending functionality of Harris matrices

• Semantic technologies offer some possibilities, but currently it is simpler for Temporal relations than Spatial....(i.e. limited semantic GIS)

• ...but can definitely help in conceptualising and perhaps visualising for re-use of the Spatio-Temporal relations in our records.

Acknowledgements

❖ CRMarchaeo - http://www.ics.forth.gr/isl/index_main.php?l=e&c=711

❖ Papadakis, Doerr & Plexousakis 'Fuzzy Times on Space-time Volumes'

❖ Masur, May, Heibel, Aspöck 'Comparing and mapping archaeological excavation data from different recording systems for integration using ontologies'

❖ Images from Wikipedia