The Database of Religious History (DRH): ontology, coding strategies and the future of cultural evolutionary analyses

Abstract

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing designers of large-scale, cross-cultural databases is that of ontology, both in terms of defining the unit of analysis and the construction of an appropriate back-end architecture. These decisions are also impacted by the coding strategies adopted, envisioned users, and funding limitations. This article explores how one particular database project, the Database of Religious History (DRH), has addressed these issues, the advantages and drawbacks of the approaches adopted, and the potential of the DRH as a data resource for exploring the cultural evolution of religion.