Current developments in cyber-infrastructure in European archaeology

This is a pdf copy of the PPT slides used for this presentation in the SAA symposium. In Europe, as in North America, there has been little attention to the long term issues of digital data curation, with consequent risks of catastrophic data loss. In recent years, however, there has been mounting pressure on government agencies and universities to ensure that the research they fund, and the underlying data, are properly managed, and are available ‘Open Access’. Consequently, several European countries are now establishing digital data archives for archaeology. This paper will review current initiatives, and the problems they face, based largely on the experience of the UK’s Archaeology Data Service, now approaching its 20th anniversary. It will introduce ARIADNE, an EU-funded e-infrastructure which is attempting to facilitate integrated access to national archives and to European archaeological data.