Following the Thread: Integrating SORAN's Dataset Into ARIADNEplus

 The Comprehensive Database of Archaeological Site Reports in Japan (SORAN) (see fig 1) is Ja-pan’s largest repository and aggregator of archaeological data and information. It is operated by the Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties (NABUNKEN), one of the two state-level research institutes in the country focusing on cultural heritage. SORAN primarily functions as an index of domestic archaeological excavations. Its catalog currently contains information on roughly 140 thousand archaeological interventions and 110 thousand publications, of which circa 30 thou-sand are available as full-text PDFs. The metadata stored comes from various sources, of which the datasheets attached to fieldwork reports published post-1994 are the most important. These sheets contain information on every archaeological intervention covered in a given fieldwork report and record the name, location (address), position (latitude and longitude), size, type, age(s) of the sites excavated, the date and reason for the excavations, and the most significant structural remains and materials found. The information from the datasheets is uploaded to SORAN by local governments, museums, universities, and academic societies through a WEB interface. 

In 2017, NABUNKEN was invited to join the ARIADNEplus data infrastructure, the successor of AR-IADNE, a project aiming to overcome the fragmentation of archaeological data repositories. NABUNKEN accepted the offer and decided to integrate a significant part of SORAN’s data into ARIADNEplus to improve its data’s findability and enrich the international dataset. This presentation describes the process involved and the benefits gained from participating in ARIADNEplus.