ARIADNE (Advanced Research Infrastructure for Archaeological Dataset Networking in Europe)

Archaeological digital datasets from different periods, domains and regions across Europe were widely available but isolated and disconnected. ARIADNE integrated the existing archaeological research data infrastructures so that researchers can use the various distributed datasets. The USW team led the ARIADNE Work Package on Linking Archaeological Data, building on the outcomes of AHRC funded STAR, STELLAR and SENESCHAL projects. As part of their contribution, the USW team addressed the problems posed by resource metadata in different languages for effective cross search. USW proposed a central spine vocabulary for European archaeological infrastructure and developed open source mapping tools, templates and guidelines. This resulted in a multilingual concept based semantic search capability, opening access to non-English language resources, for the major European archaeological data centres and the broader archaeological community. A major publication (and demonstrator) showed how detailed archaeological datasets and reports in different languages could be efficiently integrated and cross-searched.