Collaborative Research: Developing the Cyberinfrastructure for a National Archaeological Site Database

在美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的支持下，一个由大学、公共和私营部门研究人员组成的团队将开发协议，将北美大片地区的考古信息整合到一个统一的数据库中，并使这些功能可供广泛的学术、资源管理和公众使用。主要团队由田纳西大学的David G. Anderson博士和Stephen Yerka先生、开放环境和加州大学伯克利分校信息学院的Eric Kansa博士、亚历山大档案研究所的Sarah Whitcher Kansa博士和印第安纳大学南本德分校的Joshua Wells博士组成。许多州和联邦机构、公立和私立大学以及私营公司的研究人员和土地管理人员将通过提供信息和评估如何最好地将其用于研究和管理目的来协助这项工作。收集和汇编考古数据的努力有着悠久的历史，有关考古遗址和藏品的信息由每个州和地区保存。然而，这些数据很少在大的地理尺度上进行汇编和检查，特别是那些横切的州线，而且从来没有达到本项目提出的研究和管理目的的程度。来自密西西比河以东15到20个州（50万个站点）的数据将使用一个信息学框架进行整合，该框架将促进州和联邦机构的政府人员以及国内和国际研究人员的扩展和重用。遗址文件和其他数据集的联系将促进对过去人类适应大范围地区的研究，并促进考古学家和其他学科科学家之间的更大合作。例如，考古数据在新范围内的联系将首次允许探索令人兴奋的新研究课题，例如在过去的13000年里，北美的人口如何应对气候变化、人口增长和/或人为的环境问题。以地图和数据表的形式提供在线输出（为了保护敏感地点，空间分辨率大大降低）将提高公众对一般科学研究，特别是考古学的认识、教育和欣赏。原始考古数据可以被整合并用于解决如此大规模的基本问题，这一证明将在世界范围内激发类似的努力。最后，通过创建翻译程序而不是规定程序，该项目将通过网络基础设施促进考古合作，具有较高的收益与成本比。该项目将有助于实现国家科学基金会的研究和教育目标。它将促进多个合作伙伴之间的新型网络和数据集成，以及跨多个学科和地缘政治边界的研究和教育活动。该项目将资助研究生和本科生，并将帮助他们在21世纪的关键信息管理技能的培训。该项目正面解决了全球研究界面临的一个重大挑战：如何以一种对重要科学研究有用的方式连接断开的和不兼容的数据系统。

With National Science Foundation support, a team of university, public, and private sector researchers will develop protocols to integrate archaeological information from large areas of North America into a unified database, and make these capabilities available to a wide variety of scholarly, resource management, and public audiences. The primary team consists of Dr. David G. Anderson and Mr. Stephen Yerka of the University of Tennessee, Dr. Eric Kansa of Open Context & the UC Berkeley School of Information, Dr. Sarah Whitcher Kansa of the Alexandria Archive Institute, and Dr. Joshua Wells of Indiana University South Bend. Researchers and land managers at a number of state and federal agencies, public and private universities, and private companies will assist in this effort, both by providing information and evaluating how it may be best used for research and management purposes. Efforts to collect and compile archaeological data have a long history, and information about archaeological sites and collections is maintained by every state and territory. Only rarely, however, have these data been compiled and examined at large geographic scales, especially those crosscutting state lines, and never to the extent and for the research and management purposes proposed in this project. Data from some 15 to 20 states (half a million sites) east of the Mississippi will be integrated using an informatics framework that promotes extensions and reuse by government personnel in state and federal agencies, and domestic and international researchers. Linkage of site file and other datasets will facilitate studies of past human adaptation spanning large areas, and lead to greater collaboration between archaeologists and scientists in other disciplines. As examples, the linkage of archaeological data at broad new scales will permit, for the first time, the exploration of exciting new research topics, such as how the human populations in North America responded to climate change, population growth, and/or anthropogenic environmental issues over the past 13,000 years. The availability of output online in the form of maps and data tables (at significantly reduced spatial resolution, to protect sensitive locations) will enhance public awareness, education, and appreciation for scientific research in general and archaeology in particular. The demonstration that primary archaeological data can be integrated and used to address fundamental questions at such scales will stimulate similar efforts worldwide. Finally, by creating translating routines rather than dictating procedures, this project will foster archaeological cooperation through cyberinfrastructure with a high ratio of benefits to costs. The project will help to achieve NSF goals for research and education. It will foster novel networking and data integration among multiple partners, as well as research and educational activities across multiple disciplines and geopolitical boundaries. The project will fund graduate and undergraduate students, and will assist their training in critical information management skills for the 21st century. The project addresses head-on a major challenge facing research communities worldwide: how to link disconnected and incompatible data systems in such a way that the combined data are useful for important scientific research.