Reflections on Collaborative Archaeology and Large-Scale Online Research Infrastructures

Abstract

The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is an archive working at a national level in the UK, ensuring that archaeologists have access to high quality and dependable digital resources, including openly licensed legacy data for reuse. The ADS acts as a metadata aggregator for archaeological data held by larger heritage agencies and smaller regional organizations and participates in international aggregation infrastructure projects such as ARIADNE, which allows users to access archaeological resources held in many countries from a single interface. Large-scale infrastructures can facilitate the building of long-term, complex relationships and active collaborations, not just technical solutions. This paper reflects on the roles of stewardship and equity within ARIADNE and the ADS, two large-scale online research infrastructures, and how these types of infrastructures may help to create a more collaborative archaeology, including lessons learned, challenges and opportunities, and thoughts for the future.