Modelling archaeological information in the era of the semantic web: Re-reading 2.0 of ancient and alto-medieval archaeological data of the municipality of Theux (B.)

MURIEL VAN RUYMBEKE | 2021

Summary 

While the advent of digital archaeology has considerably broadened the scientific perspectives of archaeological professionals, it has also contributed to a profound transformation of their discipline. This transformation is mainly manifested in the way in which the observed data is recorded and transmitted. Apart from the undeniable methodological contribution, the new practices also generate new pitfalls. Indeed, in order to take advantage of the power of information technology, it is necessary to model the data submitted to it. If this is not done properly, the information can be impoverished. In archaeology, there is still no consensus on the modelling process which could avoid this danger.

The research reported here involved proposing new modelling approaches for archaeological data and presenting these approaches in a sufficiently clear, relevant and validated manner to be used in the development of an archaeological information system. An additional criterion was also added to the exercise, that of conforming these proposals to the standards of the semantic web.

The robustness of these proposals was tested by applying them to a rich and consistent corpus of ancient and alto-medieval archaeological data from the municipality of Theux. In addition to demonstrating the robustness of the concepts developed, their instantiation using real data has made it possible to put forward new hypotheses for interpretation.

Links 

• Van Ruymbeke, M., Carré, C., Delfosse, V., Pfeiffer, M., & Billen, R. (2015). Towards an Archaeological Information System: Improving the Core Data Model. In F. Giligny, F. Djindjian, L. Costa, P. Moscati, ... S. Robert (Eds.), CAA 2014 21st century Archaeology : Concepts methods and tools : Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (pp. 245-253). Oxford, United Kingdom: Archaeopress. https://hdl.handle.net/2268/180080
• Van Ruymbeke, M., Hallot, P., & Billen, R. (17 August 2017). Enhancing CIDOC - CRM and compatible models with  the concept of  multiple interpretation. ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume IV-2/W2, 287-294. doi:10.5194/isprs-annals-IV-2-W2-287-2017 https://hdl.handle.net/2268/214320
• Van Ruymbeke, M., Hallot, P., Nys, G.-A., & Billen, R. (July 2018). Implementation of multiple interpretation data model concepts in CIDOC CRM and compatible models. Virtual Archaeology Review, 9 (19), 50-65. doi:10.4995/var.2018.8884 https://hdl.handle.net/2268/221219
• Nys, G.-A., Van Ruymbeke, M., & Billen, R. (13 October 2018). Spatio-temporal reasoning in CIDOC CRM: an hybrid ontology with GeoSPARQL and OWL-Time. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2230.  https://hdl.handle.net/2268/228461
• Van Ruymbeke, M. (2021). Modéliser l’information archéologique à l’ère du web sémantique - Relecture 2.0 des données archéologiques antiques et alto-médiévales  de la commune de Theux (B.) [Doctoral thesis, ULiège - Université de Liège]. ORBi-University of Liège. https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/264507  https://hdl.handle.net/2268/264507