Zooarchaeology of Neolithic Anatolia: Research Outcomes from Large-Scale Data Integration with Open Context

We are happy to report the publication of a paper synthesizing several integrated datasets documenting zooarchaeological specimens from Neolithic Anatolia. The open access journal PLOS ONE published the paper on Friday. The paper presents results of a large-scale data sharing and integration study funded by a “Computable Data Challenge” award from the Encyclopedia of Life […] Read More

Cyberinfrastructure in Near Eastern Archaeology

At the 2012 ASOR meeting in Chicago last month, the AAI co-organized (with Chuck Jones, ISAW) and presented in the second of a 3-year session Topics in Cyberinfrastructure, Digital Humanities, and Near Eastern Archaeology I. This year’s theme was From Data to Knowledge: Organization, Publication, and Research Outcomes. Presentations and demonstrations took place two back-to-back […] Read More

Open Context Data in GitHub

We’ve recently completed exporting the majority of the data from Open Context to GitHub. For most data in Open Context, we link directly into the GitHub repository where the version history of the XML representation can be seen. Here’s an example: A coin from Domuztepe (the GitHub link follows the thumbnails). GitHub is mainly a […] Read More

Our Office of Science and Technology Policy Recommendations

Overview The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recently issued a Request for Information welcoming comments and recommendations for ensuring long-term stewardship of, and broad public access to, digital data resulting from federally funded research. The Alexandria Archive Institute (AAI) commends the OSTP for further exploring this topic. The AAI (http://alexandriaarchive.org) is a non-profit […] Read More

Open Context and CDL “Data Journals”

We’ve been working to develop a model of “data sharing as publication” in our work with Open Context. In our view, publication helps communicate some of the need for quality and standards alignment that makes effective data dissemination something more formal than implied by the term “sharing.” We’re definitely not alone in this assessment, and […] Read More

Open Context’s Editorial Board

Open Context aims to make research data a valuable and valued aspect of scholarly communications, especially in archaeology. Its development is necessarily a long-term project because it requires inventing a host of new work-flows that can mesh with the realities of the professional lives of researchers. Researchers face tremendous time pressures. This makes them generally […] Read More

Archaeobotanical Database in Tübingen

Scholars at the University of Tübingen in Germany are “investigat[ing] the development of prehistoric wild plant floras of the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean. The geographic area … represented in the data, includes Greece, Turkey, Western Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Northern Egypt. The chronological frame comprises the Chalcolithic period, Bronze and […] Read More

Chogha Mish Fauna

We are proud to announce the arrival of a new, exciting project in the Open Context database, co-authored by Levent Atici (University of Nevada Las Vegas), Justin S.E. Lev-Tov (Statistical Research, Inc.) and our own Sarah Whitcher Kansa. Chogha Mish Fauna This project uses the publicly available dataset of over 30,000 animal bone specimens from excavations […] Read More