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Our Workshop at ADS, planning ATRIUM geospatial demonstrators for multidisciplinary data tagging

By Emilie Page-Perron

On February 11th, an ATRIUM workshop was held at the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) , hosting William Illsley from the Swedish National Data Service (SND) to discuss the elaboration of our demonstrators for one of our geo-data-oriented tasks.

As part of the ATRIUM project, we have developed four different geospatial research workflows, two of which also have corresponding demonstrators. Our task is specifically concerned with multi-disciplinary spatial data tagging. For our demonstrators, we decided to work on two specific case studies: a Swedish and an English one.

The Swedish case study revolves around the county of Östergötland, for which we have a wonderful historical dataset of agricultural statistics at the parish level from 1570 to 1810. This data can be coupled with local archaeological excavation information, historical parishes polygons, and more. The English case study is centred on the St. James Cemetery in Euston, London, where an extensive archaeological excavation was carried out in advance of the construction of the new Euston rail terminal, part of the HS2 project. There are also historical records of the people buried in the grounds

These demonstrators showcase how we can bring together spatial data from different domains and countries to tell richer stories about place. By combining archaeological evidence with historical sources in particular, we are testing ways to make complex geospatial resources easier to explore through the ARIADNE portal and related tools. This work also aligns with ATRIUM’s interest in new audiences, since local and family historians are often drawn to questions of “where” and benefit from being able to move seamlessly between maps, archives, and archaeological datasets.

geospatial demonstrators

In the morning, we had robust discussions about what should constitute a record in the new datasets we were preparing, including metadata and licensing. We were pleasantly surprised that many of the Swedish datasets we are using are licensed under the Creative Commons Public Domain license. After these data-intensive sessions, we hopped on a call with Elton Barker to discuss disseminating our Swedish data through a Peripleo map.

workshop

For lunch, a few of us went to “Original Shwarma” for their tasty and affordable falafel wrap. They are one of the few shops in the city with a tandoor oven, where they bake the flatbread fresh from dough right before your eyes. After we replenished our energy, William gave a talk to our staff about SND’s operations and strategies. It was great to learn about the similarities and differences with the remit and processes in place between SND and ADS. 

For the last part of the day, we had a deep dive into one of the English datasets with more of our colleagues at ADS, specialists in their own areas. Jo Gilham demonstrated her beautiful geospatial interface to the burials from St James’ Cemetery in London. The digital archive is still in development, and we had a useful discussion about which datapoints we wanted to reuse and how they should be presented. This concluded our workshop for the day, and we left with new ideas and a list of tasks to make these demonstrators come to life. Of course, this event was carried on in the beautiful setting of King’s Manor, in the heart of the medieval city of York, in the Yorkshire region.


Participating in some of the workshop blocks were:

  • Émilie Pagé-Perron
  • William Illsley
  • Sarah Middle
  • Julian Richards
  • Tim Evans
  • Olivia Foster
  • Solange Bohling
  • Jo Gilham
  • Patrick McHugh

We are excited to see our demonstrators come together and are eager to share the results of our work in the near future!