Keep Control of Your Data! A Decentralized, Open-Source and Community-Driven Approach to Archaeological Data Sharing Through the archeoViz Portal

Recent literature highlights several barriers to the availability of field archaeological data: 1) the absence of user-friendly tools, 2) a lack of data management training, 3) limited time to prepare data for publication, and 4) insufficient recognition of data publishing efforts. To address these issues, “archeoViz” offers a solution as a stand-alone application for visualising and statistically exploring spatialised archaeological data. Designed as a cornerstone of a decentralised web network for excavation and survey data, “archeoViz” supports multiple instances for individual datasets, allowing users to deploy these instances on their choice of institutional or personal servers, thus avoiding centralised data storage. Importantly, “archeoViz” serves as a data editorialising tool, making data publishing a desirable, though not mandatory, endeavor. It encourages the open publication of comprehensive workflows, including datasets, any necessary reprocessing code, and their respective “archeoViz” instances, using third-party services.

However, decentralised approaches present challenges, such as the risk of component dispersion. To mitigate it, we propose: 1) detailed bibliographic referencing of “archeoViz” instances as distinct editorial units and 2) the “archeoViz Portal” for indexing and enhancing the discoverability of instances (https://analytics.huma-num.fr/archeoviz/home). This portal allows for searching instances via keywords or a map, aligns metadata with standard vocabularies (e.g. Geonames), and integrates with “Openarchaeo”, a semantic web repository for archaeological data. Ultimately, the “archeoViz portal” facilitates data sharing and the visual restitution of archaeological findings, benefiting scientists and the general public alike.

Abstract taken from the EAA 2024 Abstract Book:

30th EAA Annual Meeting (Rome, Italy 2024) - Abstract Book Names, titles and affiliations are reproduced as submitted by the session organisers and/or authors. Language and wording of titles and abstracts were not revised. Technical editing: Sára Tylšová, Magda Karabáš (EAA) Design and layout: Sára Tylšová, Magda Karabáš (EAA) Design - cover: Symposia srl Design - logo: Caterina Amendola European Association of Archaeologists Rome, August 2024 © European Association of Archaeologists, 2024 ISBN 978-80-88441-08-3 30th EAA Annual Meeting (Rome, 2024)

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