We are gearing up for the San Francisco SAA meetings and we want to see you!   You can find us at our booth in the exhibit hall (#501) from 9AM to 5PM Thursday through Saturday. 

We have a lot to share—first and foremost, if you haven’t seen tDAR live and in action one of our expert digital curators will be able to walk you through finding materials in the archive, as well as the simple steps necessary to preserve a digital file.  We can discuss how to go about conceptualizing and creating a digital archive, or how to organize your materials in tDAR. 

If you are a presenter at this year’s SAAs we have an exciting opportunity for you to experience contributing to tDAR at no cost.  All 2015 SAA abstracts will be available in tDAR as citation records.  Presenters are able to upload a copy of the presentation and associated data (up to 3 files totaling 30MB) to tDAR.  Stop by the booth  and we’ll walk you through the upload process or provide you with instructions for completing the upload at a later date. This is a great opportunity to share and preserve your archaeological data!

Budgeting your digital data archive can be a challenge, but we are here to help.  Ask any of our staff for guidance on developing a budget for a grant proposal or scope of work that will ensure all of the digital material you generate is properly cared for in perpetuity.   We’d be delighted to tell you about our new, reduced rates for long-term digital curation!

Where else can you find us?

Booth: The Center for Digital Antiquity and the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR), Thursday-Saturday 9AM to 5PM, Exhibit Hall #501

Workshop: Best Practices for the Curation of Digital Archaeological Data and Information, Francis McManamon, Jodi Reeves Flores, and Leigh Anne Ellison, Wednesday 1-5PM, Continental Ballroom Parlor 3 (advance registration required)

Forum: Diverse Digital Archaeologies, Francis McManamon, Thursday 8-10AM, Union Square 25

Forum: The Prospects and Challenges of Faunal Data Integration and Comparative Analysis, Katherine Spielmann and Keith Kintigh, Thursday 1-3PM, Golden Gate 1

Poster: Best Practices for Good Digital Curation, Francis McManamon and Julian Richards, Thursday 6-8PM, Grand Ballroom A

Poster: Evaluating a Cooperative Approach to the Management of Digital Archaeological Records (ECAMDAR): A Defense Legacy Project Assessing tDAR for the Department of Defense, Sara Rivers Cofield and Jodi Reeves Flores, Thursday 6-8PM, Grand Ballroom A

Poster: Synthesizing Legacy Data: Using tDAR’s Data Integration Tool, Leigh Anne Ellison and Adam Brin, Thursday 6-8PM, Grand Ballroom A

Poster: The Digital Legacy of Public Archaeology in the Phoenix Basin, Arizona, Lauren Jelinek, Jon Czaplicki, and M. Scott Thompson, Thursday 6-8PM, Grand Ballroom A

Paper: Managing ‘A Mountain’ of Rock Art Digital Data, Jodi Reeves Flores and M. Scott Thompson, Saturday 3:30PM, Imperial Ballroom A

We’ve also got new swag and great giveaways.  Visit our booth in the exhibit hall early to secure your Digital Antiquity sticker or tDAR jump drive, and enter to win one of our daily giveaways that include books, digital storage media, and a grand prize digital preservation package in tDAR!

Modern archaeological investigations both produce and rely upon digital data: photographs taken in the field, GIS information, analytical and descriptive data sets, project reports, etc. These new data add to an existing, although underutilized, backlog of archaeological information, some of it in digital formats, some not. Without a well thought-out approach to data management, important information, whether in digital formats or not, will be overlooked or lost because it is forgotten, misplaced or damaged. Good digital data management requires attention to the means of data storage, aspects of archiving data, how data are to be preserved, and the curation of data so that is discoverable, accessible, and usable.

Digital Antiquity Staff will be hosting a workshop at the 2015 Society for American Archaeology meetings in San Francisco, on the background of data management, how good data management is organized, and tools and methods that they can integrate into their existing project and research workflows to ensure good management of digital data. Participants in the workshop will be introduced to the types of digital repositories that are available and where they can browse, access and download archaeological documents, data sets, images, and other kinds of archaeological information. Archaeologists, whether they work in CRM, for government agencies, or in academic positions, can use digital repositories to store, organize, and promote their archaeological work.

The workshop will focus on case studies and examples in tDAR (the Digital Archaeological Record). Participants will learn how to access and use resources in the repository and curate and manage CRM reports, data sets, photographs, GIS files, and other archaeologically relevant digital resources. Participants will need to bring their own laptop computer with wireless capabilities and a file (such as a report, dissertation, dataset, etc.) to upload to tDAR as part of the workshop.

Participants will receive a voucher for one free file (up to 10 MB) and a free copy of Caring for Digital Data in Archaeology: A Guide to Good Practice (for a total value of $80).

We also encourage you to stop by our booth in the exhibit hall.  Digital Antiquity staff will be on hand all week to answer your questions and give you a personalized tour of tDAR.  You can even sign up in advance for a 15 minute meeting with one of us to ensure you don’t have to wait!  Click here to access the calendar and select your time.

Katherine A. Spielmann (Arizona State University) and Tiffany Clark (Arizona State University) will be hosting a workshop to train participants in the uploading, mapping, and integrated analysis of faunal datasets in the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) at the San Francisco Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting.  tDAR provides an innovative and powerful approach to the synthesis of original archaeological data through the use of an analytical tool that makes it possible to integrate databases (or spreadsheets) that were recorded by different investigators using different analytical protocols. The resulting unified database can then be used to address a diversity of research questions.

During the workshop the instructors will introduce tDAR and explain what coding keys and ontologies are, and how they fit together in tDAR. They will then work with each participant to upload one faunal dataset and its associated coding key, and on mapping their coding key to the general ontologies for a broad range of faunal variables that are available in tDAR. Towards the end of the workshop they will demonstrate the integration of multiple datasets using the tDAR data integration tool.

If you register for the workshop, instructions for what you should do before leaving home will be emailed to you.

Sign up for the workshop when registering for the meeting. Have you already registered? You can edit your registration through the SAA registration page to add this and other workshops and events.

Details:
Wednesday, 15 April, 1:00pm–5:00pm;

maximum 10 persons;

$90 meeting attendees

We also encourage you to stop by our booth in the exhibit hall.  Digital Antiquity staff will be on hand all week to answer your questions and give you a personalized tour of tDAR.  You can even sign up in advance for a 15 minute meeting with one of us to ensure you don’t have to wait!  Click here to access the calendar and select your time.

The Center for Digital Antiquity (Digital Antiquity) and the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (MAC Lab) are proud to announce that digital archaeological materials associated with the archaeological collections from Department of Defense bases and facilities that are curated at the MAC Lab and the Fort Lee Regional Archaeological Curation Facility (RACF) are now active and available on tDAR.  Making this wealth of archaeological information accessible was made possible through “Evaluating a Cooperative Approach to the Management of Digital Archaeological Records (ECAMDAR)” – a project funded by the Department of Defense Legacy Program. The two collections contain a wealth of archaeological data from 23 Army and Navy bases and facilities in the Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC area that has been collected over the past three-plus decades.

The purpose of the ECAMDAR project–led by Sara Rivers Cofield, the Federal Curator at the MAC Lab–was to evaluate tDAR as a potential repository for the DoD’s digital archaeological records. The study used collections from the MAC Lab at Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum (JPPM), and the RACF at Fort Lee. Together, the MAC Lab and RACF curate collections from 25 DoD installations. Existing digital data files from these installations were submitted to Digital Antiquity where digital curators, led by Jodi Reeves Flores, checked files, migrated them to current digital format standards (as needed), drafted metadata for each file, redacted very specific site location data (as needed), and uploaded the files to tDAR.  In total, 6,889 files/17.6GB from 23 installations were added to tDAR where they are now protected in perpetuity as irreplaceable records of archaeological sites and are accessible in accordance with 36 CFR Part 79 and DoD regulations.

The project was designed to test whether the features and functionality of tDAR is appropriate and sufficient to manage DoD data in a manner that is secure, cost-effective, and of benefit to the military mission. The process demonstrated that tDAR is capable of meeting these requirements and could be adopted by bases and facilities throughout the DoD. The tDAR software and features are flexible enough to handle files from many different installations. The results were positive, so comments regarding DoD-wide implementation are included in the project report submitted to the Department of Defence Legacy Program and now under final review for approval.

Digital Antiquity would like to thank Rivers Cofield and the project participants from the different installations for their time and commitment to the project, as well as the DoD Legacy Program for recognizing the importance in preserving and making accessible digital archaeological materials.

The Society for American Archaeology supports a generous tDAR benefit for student members, and time is running out to take advantage of this offer for 2014! All SAA student members are eligible for a voucher that allows them to upload three files (totaling 30MB) to tDAR, valued at $150.  This is a wonderful opportunity to develop good digital archiving habits, and to preserve and make accessible your archaeological information.  Students have used these in a variety of ways.  For example, Angela Huster used hers to archive the data associated with her publication in Advances in Archaeological Practice.  Saul Hedquist turned a class paper into a conference poster, and archived the data set, the poster, and the references in tDAR.

You need not be as far along with your research as Angela or Saul were for their tDAR projects.  For example, you might archive data, photos, maps, or reports gathered to support your Master’s thesis or dissertation research, even if these materials aren’t final or the results aren’t yet published.  Photos, maps, and field notes or reports may be ready to archive now — even before you’ve completed your analysis or interpretations.  If you plan to add to your data sets in the future you can upload a current copy to tDAR for safekeeping, and replace the file when you have new data.  If you haven’t yet published the information you can embargo the file in tDAR, which will prevent others from downloading it until a date specified in the future.

If you aren’t sure what to put into tDAR, or how to get started we encourage you to sign up for one of our online seminars through SAA’s Online Seminar Series.  Introduction to Archaeological Digital Data Management is offered on February 12th, 2015 from 12-2PM EST.  Introduction to Digital Repositories for Archaeological Materials: tDAR (the Digital Archaeological Record) is offered on September 28th from 2-3PM EST, and is free to SAA members.  Read more about and register for these and other online seminars offered by SAA here.

To take advantage of your SAA student member benefit please email membership@saa.org and request your tDAR voucher for 2014 before January 31st, 2015.  If you haven’t yet registered to become a tDAR member visit tDAR.org to sign up.  Then head over to tDAR’s pricing page (core.tdar.org/cart/add), enter your voucher number in the “Redeem Code” field, and click “Next: Review & Choose Payment Method.” Your credit will be added to your account and you can begin uploading files!

We have a great deal planned for 2015, and it’ll start with a bang. We have a new software release almost ready to go, and our contributors continue to upload and add lots of materials to tDAR. The tDAR application had two major updates in 2014, knap and lithic. A bunch of new features were added including enhancing users’ profile pages, allowing users to duplicate resources for faster customization and upload, and dedicated pages for keywords.

New content was added to tDAR by our clients and contributors including a number of amazing 3D scans from around the world uploaded by CAST; materials from the USAF Shaw Air Force Base and Avon Park Air Force Range; and reports from PaleoResearch Institute. Closer to home, our ASU colleagues Michelle Hegmon, Margaret Nelson, and Katherine Spielmann and their students continue to add content related to their research on Mimbres ceramics and sites and Southwestern faunal collections to tDAR.

We are continuing our work, begun in earnest last fall with the Corps of Engineers and the US Air Force on digital archaeological archives for their bases and other facilities. We are also still working with the Phoenix Area Office of the Bureau of Reclamation and Midwest Archeological Center of the National Park Service on their rich archives of archaeological material.

We have partnered with the relatively new Center for Archaeology and Society here at ASU and begun collaborating with the Archaeological Institute of America, about which more in another post. We continue our work with our partners at the Society for American Archaeology on activities that promote good digital curation of archaeological data. We can’t wait to see what the rest of 2015 holds.

Content added to tDAR in 2014

Usage Statistics

While we do not maintain detailed statistics on users or use to protect user and contributor privacy, we can share some interesting aggregate data. Below are the most frequently viewed and downloaded resources.

Most Viewed

• Prehistoric Irrigation in Arizona: Symposium 1988 (10265)
• Mimbres Pottery Images Digital Database (MimPIDD) (6411)
• Aztec Ruin Dendro Data (3293)
• Sapelo Island (3207)
• Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains (2093)
• Jordan’s Journey (44PG302) (2000)
• The Archaeology of Highland Chiriqui, Panama — Documents, Images, and Datasets (1450)
• Eaton Site (1324)
• Aztec West Ruin: Perishable Artifacts and Pottery from Excavations by the American Museum of Natural History (1248)
• Tikal Report 11: Map of the Ruins of Tikal, El Petén, Guatemala and Georeferenced Versions of the Maps Therein (1193)

Most Downloaded

• Exploring Iran: The Photography of Erich F. Schmidt, 1930-1940, Supplementary Material (112)
• Part 3: Quiriguá Wider Periphery, Additional Illustrations and Tables (89)
• Grand Challenges for Archaeology – Crowd Sourcing Report (80)
• EMAP – Obsidian Flakes (58)
• Archeological Investigations at Joshua Tree National Park, California (49)
• Petroglyphs of the Picacho Mountains, South Central Arizona (40)
• Tikal Report 11: Georeferenced Map- “Ruins of Tikal” (with border) (39)
• Submerged Cultural Resources Study: USS Arizona Memorial and Pearl Harbor National Historic Landmark (39)
• Mimbres Pottery Database (Public) (37)
• Tikal Report 11: Georeferenced Map- “Ruins of Tikal” (with border) (27)

Archaeologist, Glen Rice, emeritus professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University and former director of ASU’s Office of Cultural Resource Management, has been awarded the 2014 Don D. and Catherine S. Fowler Prize for his  forthcoming book, Sending the Spirits Home: The Archaeology of Hohokam Mortuary Practices, to be published by the University of Utah Press. The honor acknowledges “substantive research and quality writing [that] focus on the human experience in the American West.”  Some of the archaeological data and information upon which Dr. Rice drew for his book are available in tDAR (the Digital Archaeological Record).

Rice specializes in the Hohokam and Mogollon cultures, which has given him the opportunity to oversee several excavations of Hohokam sites done by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT).  In 2003, Rice and Brenda Shears, an ASU colleague received funding from ADOT to digitize the large number of highway archaeology reports and other information about the archaeological investigations in the Phoenix basin.  These were published as Intersections:  Pathways Through Time, a set of CD-ROM disks, cutting edge technology at the time.

In 2010, the Center for Digital Antiquity added all of the Intersections material to tDAR where it now can be accessed widely. Since being added to tDAR, the Intersection project page, from which all 39 of the reports published for the various highway archaeology investigations can be accessed and downloaded, has been viewed over 3,630 times.      

Congratulations to Dr. Rice for this well-deserved award!

Digital Antiquity staff will set up in the exhibit hall in Greenville, South Carolina at the South Eastern Archaeological Conference.  Stop by our table to learn about tDAR to preserve and share your archaeological information!  We’ll be available Thursday through Saturday morning and giving away daily prizes.  We look forward to talking with you.