Andy White Anthropology
  • Home
  • Research Interests
    • Complexity Science
    • Prehistoric Social Networks
    • Eastern Woodlands Prehistory
    • Ancient Giants
  • Blog
  • Work in Progress
    • The Kirk Project >
      • Kirk 3D Models list
      • Kirk 3D Models embedded
      • Kirk 2D images >
        • Indiana
        • Kentucky
        • Michigan
        • Ontario
      • Kirk Project Datasets
    • Computational Modeling >
      • FN3D_V3
    • Radiocarbon Compilation
    • Fake Hercules Swords
    • Wild Carolina >
      • Plants >
        • Mosses
        • Ferns
        • Conifers
        • Flowering Plants >
          • Grasses
          • Trees
          • Other Flowering Plants
      • Animals >
        • Birds
        • Mammals
        • Crustaceans
        • Insects
        • Arachnids
        • Millipedes and Centipedes
        • Reptiles and Amphibians
      • Fungi
  • Annotated Publications
    • Journal Articles
    • Technical Reports
    • Doctoral Dissertation
  • Bibliography
  • Data

Big Steps, Baby Steps, and the Potential Power of Linked Data

8/7/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
I just returned from several days at the DINAA (Digital Index of North American Archaeology) workshop that is happening at Indiana University South Bend this week.  The first two years of the DINAA project have focused on building a comprehensive, accessible database of archaeological sites in Eastern North America.  What the PIs and their core team (Josh Wells, David Anderson, Eric Kansa, Sarah Kansa, Steve Yerka, R. Carl DeMuth, Kelsey Noack Myers, and Thad Bissett) have accomplished to date is pretty remarkable:  in the pilot phase of the project, the team has assembled and made available primary data on over 340,000 recorded archaeological sites from ten states (with more data on the way).  This endeavor required navigating numerous technical, logistical, and political challenges.  What a great job they've done.  Bravo!

The DINAA project will benefit the archaeological community (and other constituencies) in a number of ways.  Some of those are obvious now, and some will become apparent as we become able to think in practical terms about the power and potential of a large, unified dataset that integrates and crosscuts the traditional (i.e., state-level) territories within which archaeological site data are managed. 


Picture
The benefit that I am most excited about is the potential of DINAA to act as a "bridge" among otherwise disconnected datasets. The key to this inter-linking is DINAA's granularity:  by making the archaeological site number the primary means by which information is organized, any datasets that reference a site number could be inter-linked through DINAA regardless of what primary information about the site is held by DINAA.  I'm compiling data on prehistoric house structures, for example, that could be linked, through DINAA, to other datasets using the key attribute of "site number."  Imagine being able to click on the site number associated with a structure in the Eastern Woodlands Household Archaeology Data Project (EWHADP) database and being led to a record in DINAA that provides links to a database of radiocarbon dates, or a spreadsheet of feature contents, or images from museum collections or field note archives, or bibliographic references for reports, dissertations, or academic papers that are also associated with that site number.  Or imagine being able to make a query for floral remains from Middle Woodland features within a 100 km radius of the site with that structure.  To say that that kind of inter-linking would be a powerful tool for research and scholarship is a great understatement.  As I argued in a presentation via Skype to the DINAA workshop that was held at the University of Tennessee in March, inter-linking of datasets would: (1) allow us to greatly expand the scale of questions we can address; (2) allow us to gather data for addressing those "big scale" questions much more efficiently; and (3) be a catalyst for developing and testing new interpretations of the past.  Engineering a system of links to connect diverse datasets would be a game changer.

At the workshop this week, we spent some time thinking about ways to actually accomplish such a linking.  The structure data I've been gathering is a good "test case" primarily because it spans the same area as the DINAA data and includes information from many sites (and is also open and freely accessible).  Information needs to flow both ways.  First, when a site record is called up in DINAA, it should be able to make a call to the EWHADP (and any other linked datasets) to see if there are records associated with that site number.  Second, site/structure records in the EWHADP should include a pointer to the appropriate record in DINAA.  The second part is simple: since the URLs associated with site records in DINAA are "stable," I can just put hyperlinks in my database that point to the DINAA record.  The second part is a little trickier.  Our first step was to put the current (as of March 2014) EWHADP database on GitHub (here) so that it would be open and accessible.  GitHub automatically tracks when changes are made to a file.  The next step (I think) will be to configure the GitHub page so that it sends a message to DINAA when the dataset changes.  This will allow the records in DINAA to be updated as new records are added to the EWHADP. 

It is the linking mechanisms that are important. 
The EWHADP data do not become a "part" of DINAA but are simply referenced by DINAA.  I maintain control and responsibility for the EWHADP part of the equation.  This is important because compilation of that dataset is ongoing:  it's a database of records that I'm still collecting rather than something like a static set of measurements that relate to a single assemblage or site.  I hope others who are developing similar datasets think about how we might link them all together through DINAA.  The corpus of scholarship relevant to archaeological work in this part of the world is simply too large and diverse to live in a single place.  A distributed approach using a "bridge" such as DINAA to link datasets is going to be much more effective and useful than trying to house everything in one central place.

We all have a lot to gain by supporting the construction of this tool.  It is going to unleash the potential energy stored in the work we've already done and provide a "living" structure that will significantly increase our capacities to find, share, utilize, and build on archaeological information. 
The DINAA project needs to move forward in a big way.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    All views expressed in my blog posts are my own. The views of those that comment are their own. That's how it works.

    I reserve the right to take down comments that I deem to be defamatory or harassing. 

    Andy White

    Follow me on Twitter: @Andrew_A_White

    Email me: andy.white.zpm@gmail.com

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner


    Picture

    Sick of the woo?  Want to help keep honest and open dialogue about pseudo-archaeology on the internet? Please consider contributing to Woo War Two.
    Picture

    Follow updates on posts related to giants on the Modern Mythology of Giants page on Facebook.

    Archives

    January 2023
    January 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

    Categories

    All
    3D Models
    AAA
    Adena
    Afrocentrism
    Agent Based Modeling
    Agent-based Modeling
    Aircraft
    Alabama
    Aliens
    Ancient Artifact Preservation Society
    Androgynous Fish Gods
    ANTH 227
    ANTH 291
    ANTH 322
    Anthropology History
    Anunnaki
    Appalachia
    Archaeology
    Ardipithecus
    Art
    Atlantis
    Australia
    Australopithecines
    Aviation History
    Bigfoot
    Birds
    Boas
    Book Of Mormon
    Broad River Archaeological Field School
    Bronze Age
    Caribou
    Carolina Bays
    Ceramics
    China
    Clovis
    Complexity
    Copper Culture
    Cotton Mather
    COVID-19
    Creationism
    Croatia
    Crow
    Demography
    Denisovans
    Diffusionism
    DINAA
    Dinosaurs
    Dirt Dance Floor
    Double Rows Of Teeth
    Dragonflies
    Early Archaic
    Early Woodland
    Earthworks
    Eastern Woodlands
    Eastern Woodlands Household Archaeology Data Project
    Education
    Egypt
    Europe
    Evolution
    Ewhadp
    Fake Hercules Swords
    Fetal Head Molding
    Field School
    Film
    Florida
    Forbidden Archaeology
    Forbidden History
    Four Field Anthropology
    Four-field Anthropology
    France
    Genetics
    Genus Homo
    Geology
    Geometry
    Geophysics
    Georgia
    Giants
    Giants Of Olden Times
    Gigantism
    Gigantopithecus
    Graham Hancock
    Grand Valley State
    Great Lakes
    Hollow Earth
    Homo Erectus
    Hunter Gatherers
    Hunter-gatherers
    Illinois
    India
    Indiana
    Indonesia
    Iowa
    Iraq
    Israel
    Jim Vieira
    Jobs
    Kensington Rune Stone
    Kentucky
    Kirk Project
    Late Archaic
    Lemuria
    Lithic Raw Materials
    Lithics
    Lizard Man
    Lomekwi
    Lost Continents
    Mack
    Mammoths
    Mastodons
    Maya
    Megafauna
    Megaliths
    Mesolithic
    Michigan
    Middle Archaic
    Middle Pleistocene
    Middle Woodland
    Midwest
    Minnesota
    Mississippi
    Mississippian
    Missouri
    Modeling
    Morphometric
    Mound Builder Myth
    Mu
    Music
    Nazis
    Neandertals
    Near East
    Nephilim
    Nevada
    New Mexico
    Newspapers
    New York
    North Carolina
    Oahspe
    Oak Island
    Obstetrics
    Ohio
    Ohio Valley
    Oldowan
    Olmec
    Open Data
    Paleoindian
    Paleolithic
    Pilumgate
    Pleistocene
    Pliocene
    Pre Clovis
    Pre-Clovis
    Prehistoric Families
    Pseudo Science
    Pseudo-science
    Radiocarbon
    Reality Check
    Rome
    Russia
    SAA
    Sardinia
    SCIAA
    Science
    Scientific Racism
    Sculpture
    SEAC
    Search For The Lost Giants
    Sexual Dimorphism
    Sitchin
    Social Complexity
    Social Networks
    Solutrean Hypothesis
    South Africa
    South America
    South Carolina
    Southeast
    Stone Holes
    Subsistence
    Swordgate
    Teaching
    Technology
    Teeth
    Television
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Topper
    Travel
    Travel Diaries
    Vaccines
    Washington
    Whatzit
    White Supremacists
    Wisconsin
    Woo War Two
    World War I
    World War II
    Writing
    Younger Dryas

    RSS Feed

    Picture
Proudly powered by Weebly