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32nd EAA Annual Meeting

Date
August 26 – 29, 2026
Location
Athens, Greece

ATRIUM has the pleasure of presenting at the 32nd EAA Annual Meeting in Athens with the theme of ‘Resonant Pasts’.

Sarah Middle, Émilie Pagé-Perron and Julian Richards (University of York, Archaeology Data Service) will present the paper ‘Structuring the Past for the Future: interoperable approaches to legacy data at ADS and HSDS’ in the session ‘Long-term Legacy Data in Archaeology: Challenges of Structure, Continuity and Transformation’.

Abstract – Structuring the Past for the Future: interoperable approaches to legacy data at ADS and HSDS

For 30 years, the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) has provided the leading repository in the UK for archaeology and historic environment data. As part of our mission, we ensure that legacy datasets of all sizes and formats remain (re-)usable and accessible in the long term. Our mission of archiving and preserving archaeological data has recently expanded with the launch of the Heritage Science Data Service (HSDS), applying our expertise to advance the sustainability and discoverability of heritage science data. Through Linked Open Data technologies, ADS and HSDS collections are connected to the ARIADNE research infrastructure, ensuring interoperability with archaeological metadata from throughout Europe and beyond. Such integration is achieved via the implementation of the CIDOC CRM-derived AO-Cat ontology and alignment of terminology with well- established standards and vocabularies.

Our presentation will start with a brief overview of our work with ADS, HSDS and ARIADNE, before sharing our insights on recent enhancements to legacy data, some of which have taken place as part of the EU-funded ATRIUM project; these include:

  • Enriching thousands of metadata records in the ARIADNE portal to reflect recent updates to the AO-Cat ontology, ensuring that these improvements to discoverability and interoperability are not restricted to new additions;
  • Providing new features in the ARIADNE portal to enable seamless viewing of 3D models and high-resolution images through IIIF; -Repurposing older datasets in the ADS repository as special collections, to provide an engaging means of interacting with legacy data, while maintaining its relevance and accessibility over time;
  • Leading the infrastructure component of the EU-funded ARTEMIS project, while contributing ADS and HSDS datasets to facilitate their realisation as semantically-modelled digital twins.

We will conclude by reflecting on our experiences and discussing our next steps in this area for ADS, HSDS, ARIADNE and our involvement in ongoing international research projects