D3.1 Initial report on standards and on the project registry

The key to interoperability in any domain is a common set of standards which meet the needs of the sector, and the will to adopt them. This report is the synthesis of an extensive survey of the standards currently developed for use within archaeology, developed by other domains which are relevant to archaeology, and allowing interoperability with other domains useful to archaeology. This report also describes the registry developed within the ARIADNE project [1], which will incorporate the standards determined to be best suited to building the infrastructure. The standards adopted by the project and incorporated into the registry are described in the parallel deliverable within this workpackage: D3.2 Report on project standards. The synthesis of the standards survey is divided into two sections, archaeology-oriented metadata standards and conceptual schemas, and archaeology-related terminology resources. The metadata standards and conceptual schemas consist of the reference models (interlinked sets of defined concepts), the most important of which is the CIDOC-CRM and its extensions. The CIDOC-CRM is the cornerstone ontology for modelling data within the cultural heritage domain, and interoperability with the CRM is an important aspect of many of the other standards. In addition to the reference models, the synthesis includes standards for archaeological sites, monuments and landscapes, archaeological sciences, museum objects, the Dublin Core properties for resource description, bibliographic materials, archival standards and geospatial information. 

The terminology resources included in the synthesis are divided into national, international and geospatial categories. While the majority are available in English, irrespective of the country of origin, many have translations into a variety of European languages, which will form a vital basis for interoperability, but translation will not be enough. Terms used within the archaeological domain necessarily vary between languages, as archaeological resources vary from place to place. One of the great challenges to interoperability within archaeology is the difference in the development of human culture in different places at different times. As such, the attempt to make archaeological data from across Europe interoperable represents a significant and unique challenge.

 The ARIADNE registry aligned to the standards adopted in D3.2 [2] will begin to address these challenges. The registry described in this report is the ARIADNE Catalogue Data Model (ACDM) and Catalogue system designed and created by ATHENA RC and CNR. The ARIADNE Catalogue is centred on the model of individual datasets, but as many of the partners hold data in the form of collections, the Catalogue has also been extended to handle collections. The Catalogue is also a metadata registry, and this report includes a discussion of metadata registries and standards, along with the technologies used to develop the metadata registry within the Catalogue, followed by a description of the ACDM and Catalogue system itself.