Ontological modelling for archaeological data

Abstract

The need to investigate an archaeological context causes the inevitable destruction of the upper strata in favour of the lower ones. On-site research activity therefore translates into a documentation activity (forms/photographs/surveys), which must be as neutral as possible and not necessarily biased by the scientific interests of the archaeologist. This documentation activity has recently been subjected to an indepth analysis and evaluation. A wide spectrum of standards and reference regulations is being defined by different national and international Organisations. The various attempts made at normalizing the production of documents of excavations have lead to the elaboration of a large number of forms. The introduction of computer science in the management of archaeological records has actually complicated the picture because it has added different formats, software and operating systems, chosen by each individual researcher. Considering how dangerous it is to convert older data to newer digital formats, as is any translation from one language to another, we started a project aiming at defining an ontology able to guarantee interoperability between different archives without modifying, altering or sacrificing the archives created by each archaeologist. The primary objective of our research has been to analyse the Italian documentation produced during the stratigraphical excavation, which represents the most consistent corpus of data available also in digital format. We chose the CIDOC-CRM because it is event-oriented. In terms of content, the archaeological documentation activity may be easily schematized: it documents a past event occurring during an archaeological era and, at the same time, it documents the action of the modern-day scholar. Any excavation activity and its pertinent methodology may be easily described following this conceptual formalism.