IG18128 - Sharing Heritage and Archaeological Data Effectively (IG18128)

Making archaeological data open and freely accessible online for academic research, professional archaeologists and wider citizens must be a priority across Europe. However, there is currently a very fragmented picture and uneven access to knowledge of Europe’s rich archaeological heritage. At the present time, only a handful of COST Member Countries have the required specialist knowledge and mechanisms in place to ensure archaeological data will be freely and openly available for reuse by future generations of researchers. Failure to address this inequality means the world will be divided into countries and regions whose archaeological research legacy is available, and those where it is irrevocably lost. This lack of equity also hampers participation in research collaboration.
Members of the COST Action SEADDA have worked closely with the European Union funded research infrastructure ARIADNE to provide a single point of access to archaeological data. By December 2022 the ARIADNE portal provided interoperable open access to over 3.3 million digital data resources, covering some 50 countries, 4 continents, and the whole span of human history from early hominids to the Cold War (https://portal.ariadne-infrastructure.eu). The ARIADNE Research Infrastructure (RI), was established as a not-for-profit association which plans to develop a straightforward chargeable service to maintain and develop the portal. On such a basis, the CIG aims to provide a solution whereby individuals and organisations can be given access to the skills and tools to publish their data online, without duplicating efforts at national, regional and local levels. This solution avoids the creation of multiple data silos, and creates a single point of access, capable of addressing major research questions, and solving heritage management problems.