IM@T Online November 2003

‘Digital Archaeology’ rescues lost records for Danebury Hillfort—with implications for business

DURING the 1970s and 1980s a vast amount of data was stored in electronic form during the excavations of the important site at Danebury Hillfort in Hampshire. That data, which because of the format in which it was stored had become practically unusable, has been rescued by experts from Oxford ArchDigital (OAD), a company specialising in computer systems and software for the Archaeology and Heritage sectors, in a project commissioned by the ADS (Archaeology Data Service) and sponsored by ARENA (Archaeological Records of Europe - Networked Access).

The Danebury Hillfort Excavations, carried out between 1969 and 1989 under the direction of Professor Barry Cunliffe, produced a mass of fascinating and valuable information about the activities on the site which is believed to have been occupied from the 6th or 7th century BC to the 1st century AD. During the work a pioneering project was conducted to record the data electronically but as computer and database technology was still in the early stages of development, the data was stored in forms that make it virtually unusable for today’s systems.

It was clear at the time that the sheer volume of data could only be analysed efficiently if it were processed in an electronic format. There were, for example, over 100,000 individual animal bones recorded; analysis of these can reveal a great deal but only if it is possible to apply computer techniques. So the data was saved onto mainframe computers, but only after it had been transcribed from the handwritten site records onto formatted data sheets and then to punch cards—a laborious and error-prone process that was a testament to the conviction and commitment of the archaeologists involved.

OAD converted a series of files that had been archived on the Oxford University mainframe computer for many years to be compatible with modern database software. This involved extensive code breaking as the data existed in a heavily coded format due to the space constraints of earlier systems. The work was supervised by Dr Gary Lock, Lecturer in Archaeology at Oxford University, OAD Founder Director, and the person responsible for the original Danebury computing over twenty years ago. The data is now available to download from the Internet and includes information on 2,000 excavated pits and their contents, 100,000 pieces of animal bone and 100,000 shards of pottery. The site includes background information on the excavations, with images, to provide context for the data. This new accessibility offers exciting possibilities for this massive dataset to be used for teaching and research. Students can be set projects based on using aspects of the data—analysing the contents of pits, for example—and researchers can incorporate the data into their work.

Dr Jon Kenny, ARENA Project Manager at the Archaeology Data Service, explains the significance of the work: “Archaeology has been transformed by the power of today’s computers and the applications that are available to researchers, as well as the Internet tools that enable us to engage interested parties wherever they are. But ‘digital archaeology’—the task of rescuing old data—is time consuming and expensive: it requires technical skills and a detailed understanding of the working of the original project team. The combination of technical skills and their knowledge of the Danebury project means that Oxford ArchDigital was able to make a first-rate job of rescuing the data. It is an excellent example of how we can make the work of earlier researchers widely accessible. Experience at ADS shows that there is a huge amount of data from numerous other projects which is not currently in a format that enables us to unlock its full value; a lot more work like this needed. Our experience at ADS also shows that there is a strong demand for this data from researchers around the world.”

Oxford ArchDigital: www.oxarchdigital.com
ADS: http://ads.ahds.ac.uk
ARENA: http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/arena/

IM@T Online November 2003