Legacy Data

Most of the public-sector systems in United State of America are using legacy database systems. The study has been undertaken to investigate the impact of legacy database system in Public Sector. This paper presents research on legacy database system transformation challenges and strategies to overcome them.

This book presents a useful GIS procedure to study settlement patterns in landscape archaeology. In several Mediterranean regions archaeological sites have been mapped by fieldwalking surveys, producing large amounts of data. These legacy site-based survey data represent an important resource to study ancient settlement organization. Methodological procedures are necessary to cope with the limits of these data, and more importantly with the distortions on data patterns caused by biasing factors. This book develops and applies a GIS procedure to use legacy survey data in settlement pattern analysis. It consists of two parts. One part regards the assessment of biases that can affect the spatial patterns exhibited by survey data. The other part aims to shed light on the location preferences and settlement strategy of ancient communities underlying site patterns. In this book, a case-study shows how the method works in practice. As part of the research by the Landscapes of Early Roman Colonization project (NWO, Leiden University, KNIR) site-based datasets produced by survey projects in central-southern Italy are examined in a comparative framework to investigate settlement patterns in the early Roman colonial period (3rd century B.C.).

Full text available in Open Access here: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/65569

A B S T R A C T This article uses evidence of regional-scale ceramic exchange to evaluate three proposed causal factors (Aztec imperial expansion, bottom-up demand, and elite competition) for the development of the market-based economy of Postclassic Central Mexico. The factors used to evaluate these models may be applied more widely to other cases of market development. Using previously published datasets, I compare the quantities and diversities of non-local ceramics from sites in the Basin of Mexico, Morelos, and the Toluca Valley regions of central highland Mexico across the Middle (CE 1150–1350) and Late (CE 1350–1521) Postclassic periods. The results show that the highest proportion of trade occurs under Aztec rule, and is dominated by ceramics exported out of the Basin of Mexico. However, areas outside the Basin of Mexico have higher numbers of trading partners, and these ties are well developed during the Middle Postclassic. These results provide partial support for both bottom-up demand and elite competition as causal factors for market development. This article also demonstrates the continued utility of legacy data and emphasizes the need to make basic data sets available for new analyses.

This book can be accessed at:
https://www.archaeopress.com/Public/displayProductDetail.asp?id={E6EACE9A-9F1C-4B8B-A3FF-9516841E6E85}

The knowledge on the patterns of Roman rural settlement in central Portugal is highly variable. While some regions have been intensively surveying and the results have been published, other, on the other hand, have never been the subject of a study of any sort. This is the case with the coastal area located between the Douro and Mondego rivers, which is particularly understudied. Though there is a long tradition of work, archaeological investigation in this region has mostly aimed to study hillfort sites whereas landscape analysis have been often overlooked. Based on an extensive bibliographical survey of reports, old publications and books, as well as the available data in the Endovelico database, it was possible to record and map 160 Roman sites. The analysis of chronology, morphology and distribution of these sites allowed to formulate several hypothesis about the some aspects of Roman rural settlement in this region and its relation with the wider landscape, especially regarding the exploitation of natural resources. Particularly, this study highlights the identification of previously unknown Roman mining activity at Serra do Buçaco and raises some doubts about the exploitation of fishing resources. Ultimately, and albeit asserting the need for further archaeological investigation, this study is a contribution for a better understanding of the Roman past in this peripheral region.

The Web of Data is an open environment consisting of a great number of large inter-linked RDF datasets from various do-mains. In this environment, organizations and companies adopt the Linked Data practices utilizing Semantic Web (SW) tech-nologies, in order to publish their data and offer SPARQL endpoints (i.e., SPARQL-based search services). On the other hand, the dominant standard for information exchange in the Web today is XML. Additionally, many international standards (e.g., Dublin Core, MPEG-7, METS, TEI, IEEE LOM) in several domains (e.g., Digital Libraries, GIS, Multimedia, e-Learning) have been expressed in XML Schema. The aforementioned have led to an increasing emphasis on XML data, accessed using the XQuery query language. The SW and XML worlds and their developed infrastructures are based on different data models, semantics and query languages. Thus, it is crucial to develop interoperability mechanisms that allow the Web of Data users to access XML datasets, using SPARQL, from their own working environments. It is unrealistic to expect that all the existing legacy data (e.g., Relational, XML, etc.) will be transformed into SW data. Therefore, publishing legacy data as Linked Data and providing SPARQL endpoints over them has become a major research challenge. In this direction, we introduce the SPARQL2XQuery Framework which creates an interoperable environment, where SPARQL queries are automatically translated to XQuery queries, in order to access XML data across the Web. The SPARQL2XQuery Framework provides a mapping model for the expression of OWL–RDF/S to XML Schema mappings as well as a method for SPARQL to XQuery translation. To this end, our Framework supports both manual and automatic mapping specification between ontologies and XML Schemas. In the automatic mapping specification scenario, the SPARQL2XQuery exploits the XS2OWL component which transforms XML Sche-mas into OWL ontologies. Finally, extensive experiments have been conducted in order to evaluate the schema transfor-mation, mapping generation, query translation and query evaluation efficiency, using both real and synthetic datasets.

The Early and Middle Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin is often viewed as a long period of transition from a dispersed form of land occupation to one of increasing aggregation, ultimately resulting in the formation of tell settlements and large cemeteries. This developmental trajectory remains a legacy of early 20th century archaeology, where the similarity of material culture recovered from cemeteries and settlements was used to develop a multi-linear scheme of progression of regional chronologies tied to specific archaeological cultures. While typologically conclusive, the recent increase in the availability of radiocarbon determinations suggests that these sequences represent a priori interpretation of social development rather than empirically verified observations. In order to do so, it is necessary to re-evaluate the existing dataset in order to determine whether the formation of tells was a chronologically contemporary development and whether the regional chronological sequences are supported by independent dating.

Beyond outlining some of the experiences and outcomes of the conversion of the University of Cincinnati’s excavations at Pompeii to a “paperless” project, particularly through the highly publicized adoption of iPads to record our archaeological fieldwork, this paper is about our discipline’s polarized response to such developments. In particular, it aims to set the pessimism about paperless methods, held by a sizable demographic, within a wider socio-academic context. Much of it is about admitting we have a problem: that is, a disciplinary consternation for changes to the ways we record data and produce knowledge in the field. More than a defense of the use of tablet computers over pieces of paper to record archaeological fieldwork, what follows is ultimately a call to balance our commonly romanticized views of experience and tradition in the ways we do things with the intellectual value in exploring new ideas and developments in core methodology.

This paper builds spatial models of Bronze Age settlement using published survey datasets from the Mirabello region in east Crete. Methodologically, we examine how point process modelling can account for uncertainties in legacy survey datasets, and thereafter can highlight patterns of both cultural change and continuity in Mirabello settlement. Comparison of fitted models over different chronological periods gives an insight, we argue, into the kinds of settlement and subsistence choices that lay behind settlement patterns, holding constant the broadly similar environmental constraints faced by inhabitants throughout the Bronze Age. Overall, the results suggest prehistoric preference for, and exploitation of, agriculturally favourable parts of the landscape, although contrasting emphases in different periods do emerge despite this unsurprising overall preference. Many of the analytical results prove robust to a sensitivity analysis which addresses commonplace uncertainties associated with settlement survey data. The results also dovetail well with previous archaeological interpretations of changing settlement and Bronze Age life in the Mirabello region. Survey datasets are also relatively common in other archaeological settings worldwide and we advocate for more widespread application of similarly formalised methods to them.

Conference Presentation from BANEA 2018:

Tell Deir ‘Alla, one of the most important archaeological sites in the Jordan Valley dating from the Late Bronze Age to the Late Iron Age, was excavated by the late Dr H. J. Franken (Leiden University) during the 1960’s. While the Early Iron Age sequence was published in the late ‘60’s, it was limited to a generalised discussion of the stratigraphy, as well as a study of the pottery. Much more in-depth information is present in the raw excavation data, gathered in several boxes at Leiden University.
This archive from the 1960’s excavations at Tell Deir ‘Alla has been made available to the author for further research and publication. The current research aims to digitise and analyse the relevant archaeological strata for further use, as well as re-evaluate several of the early interpretations made concerning the Early Iron Age, and in particular Tell Deir ‘Alla’s role in it.
While working with legacy data is not without its challenges, it comes with many opportunities. This archive contains a wealth of data, consisting of for example excavation plans, elaborate cross-sections, photographs, find drawings, and metal samples. Most of these data have not before been subject to detailed analysis, and remain unpublished. By revisiting this old excavation archive from a modern perspective, the role of Tell Deir ‘Alla during this poorly understood period can be re-evaluated. Furthermore, by evaluating the finds in relation to their archaeological contexts, our understanding of life at Deir ‘Alla during the Early Iron Age can be refined.

Kom W, a Neolithic site in the Fayum, Egypt, was excavated in 1924-26 by Caton-Thompson and Gardner (1934). Limited surviving records of their work have reduced the extent to which contemporary archaeologists can interpret the structure and formation of the site. In order to better understand Kom W and the material found there, the past excavation records need to be reimagined.

In archaeological practice it is possible to encounter either single-phase sites or multi-phase sites. The latter allow continuity and change to be traced through the different phases of a site, but require far more investment in terms of time and energy, especially when the locus of activity occupied the same place through time. In these cases, previous phases can only be explored with small test-pits conducted under the floors of later structures, and therefore require methodologies that are specifically devised to minimize the risks caused by the high level of inference and subjectivity imposed by the partiality of the documentation that is accessible to the excavators. These sites, moreover, are often investigated over very long periods of time, with different methodologies of excavation and recording that create a large corpus of legacy data that necessitates a thorough re-assessment before being used. 
This book focuses on Phaistos, a site located in Crete, and aims to establish the stratigraphic sequence of the site in the period that preceded the construction of a palace of Minoan type (a court-centred building) by using the data collected during three major excavation campaigns conducted between 1900-1909; between 1951 and 1966; and between 2000 and 2005. It is not the publication of the relative chronology of the site, i.e. of the pottery groups that define the various phases of the Early Bronze Age, as this is in the process of being completed under the auspices of the Italian Archaeological School in Athens; nor is it the publication of the results of the contextual re-assessment of the site, which has already been presented and discussed in a monograph length study, which challenged the old orthodoxy that Prepalatial Phaistos operated as a straightforward settlement that grew through the various phases of the Early Bronze Age to become a proto-urban centre. This book has been written to clarify the methodology followed by the author in re-assessing the settlement history of Phaistos prior to the construction of the palace, a methodology that was based on the cross-correlation of more than 180 stratigraphies excavated during the past 100 years that had at its core V .La Rosa’s excavation strategy, known as “Riscavare lo scavato”. This excavation programme entailed the opening of new trenches near old ones, and thus linked past and present investigations providing the opportunity to see with new eyes stratifications that had been simply described and poorly illustrated by the previous excavators.

MPhil Dissertation University of Liverpool:

Excavations produce significant quantities of data, a fact that was no different 60 years ago than it is today. Unfortunately, the resulting data are not always (fully) published, and the excavation archives, comprising photographs, notebooks and drawings, are sometimes left to gather dust for decades in storerooms, basements and attics. One such archive is the Tell Deir ‘Alla archive, which resulted from the 1960s excavations done by Prof Dr H. J. Franken on this important site in the Jordan Valley.
While Tell Deir ‘Alla received significant scholarly and popular attention mainly due to the discovery of two religious complexes dating to both the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age II periods, the layers in between them, corresponding to the Iron Age I, somewhat fell through the cracks. While a robust pottery chronology was published by the excavator, in combination with a summary of the stratigraphy, a significant amount of the excavated data was left out. While architecture and stratigraphy were touched upon, they were significantly summarised, as were the associating finds. A lot more detail and complexity existed in the original field documentation.
The Iron Age I is not well understood, and of the few excavations that were done, not many have been published. As such, the Tell Deir ‘Alla archive holds significant potential for further research on this period. To demonstrate the potential of working with this archive, a pilot-study was started in a well-defined area of the site, for a specific archaeological period: the the end of the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age I (ca. 1200-1000). One of the most standout features from this period was chosen: the Phase B installations. These installations, interpreted by the excavator as large-scale bronze casting-foundries, play an important role in various debates regarding the Iron Age I period, varying from the biblical link between metallurgy and the Jordan Valley, to the presence of the ‘Sea Peoples’. In this MPhil project the following research question was addressed:
“How can a re-evaluation of the excavation documentation of the Phase B installations at Tell Deir ‘Alla contribute to understanding their function, and their overall role in the Iron Age I economy?”
A major research outcome was the digitisation of the excavation archive. While this proved a significant and arduous task, it was successfully completed over the course of this research. This digitised Tell Deir ‘Alla archive can now be made available in open-access, allowing future archaeologists to scrutinise Franken’s theories, as well as the theories proposed in this thesis. After digitising the archive was completed, it was shaped into a workable database. This allowed for subsequent research, focusing on the Phase B installations. By analysing and bringing together the information provided by the section drawings, top-plans, fieldnotes, and photographs, the chronology of this phase could be refined, the stratigraphy amended, and the find categories which were left out in the original publication added. This in turn allowed for a re-evaluation of the Phase B installations, based on all of the available evidence in the archive. An extensive literature review allowed these new insights to be placed in a wider historical framework. By revisiting this old excavation archive from a modern perspective, the role of Tell Deir ‘Alla during this poorly understood period could be re-evaluated.

Legacy soil data have been produced over 70 years in nearly all countries of the world. Unfortunately, data, information and knowledge are still currently fragmented and at risk of getting lost if they remain in a paper format. To process this legacy data into consistent, spatially explicit and continuous global soil information, data are being rescued and compiled into databases. Thousands of soil survey reports and maps have been scanned and made available online. The soil profile data reported by these data sources have been captured and compiled into databases. The total number of soil profiles rescued in the selected countries is about 800,000. Currently, data for 117,000 profiles are compiled and harmonized according to GlobalSoilMap specifications in a world level database (WoSIS). The results presented at the country level are likely to be an underestimate. The majority of soil data is still not rescued and this effort should be pursued. The data have been used to produce soil property maps. We discuss the pro and cons of topdown and bottom-up approaches to produce such maps and we stress their complementarity. We give examples of success stories. The first global soil property maps using rescued data were produced by a top-down approach and were released at a limited resolution of 1 km in 2014, followed by an update at a resolution of 250 m in 2017. By the end of 2020, we aim to deliver the first worldwide product that fully meets the GlobalSoilMap specifications. Regardless of being national, continental and/or global, the following data rescue and grid map production steps are generally necessary, including references to GlobalSoilMap specific activities:

The digitisation and vectorisation of archaeological/architectonic graphical legacy documentation is a step that any archaeological project deals with and solves by following its own specific requirements. The article introduces the Simple Vectorisation Protocol (SVP), a GIS-based protocol for acquiring in the digital domain sketches and maps by following a very concise yet rich syntax, able to reverse engineering published and archive data. The result is a multidimensional dataset, ready to be used in specific projects, easy to publish on online repositories and highly re- usable and remixable, while still maintaining a feature-level bibliographic reference to the original source.

Archive Archaeology is a dedicated series for the publication of monographs and edited collections exploring archival material relating to archaeological and historical materials across the centuries. The aims of this series are twofold. Firstly, materials, and excavation reports can be found in museums and archives around the world, but they are largely unpublished, frequently inaccessible, and typically uncited in scholarship, despite often holding crucial information on sites as well as objects. This series therefore aims to make this material available to readers for the first time, in combination with new research materials and wider discussions around the archive material. Secondly, in the context of wider discussions about handling and disseminating cultural heritage, the series looks to promote research that explores the methodological and theoretical discussions around such material. Combined, these two approaches provide a unique forum for new research into archival and legacy data.

Satricum Hut VI: a 3-D perspective on a paper archive.
In 1983 the remains of a rectangular sunken- floored hut (Hut VI) were discovered in the Latial town of Satricum (Central Italy). The context, a fill of pieces of burnt daub, pebbles, pottery and chunks of tuff, had been carefully documented as the hut was excavated in small stratigraphic units. Although Hut VI was already published in 1992, the analytical techniques then available did not allow a full study of the hut. By fitting together all excavation data, the 3-D distribution of finds was reanalysed. It is argued that Hut VI was filled in soon after its abandonment. Its function remains unclear, since hardly any finds could be attributed to the use phase of the hut. Yet, once again, the usefulness of older data turns out to be greater than one might have expected.

Current views of Cyprus during the Middle Bronze Age (or Middle Cypriot period) depict an island largely isolated from the wider eastern Mediterranean world and comprised largely if not exclusively of “egalitarian,” agropastoral communities. In this respect, its economy stands at odds with those of polities in other, nearby regions such as the Levant, or Crete in the Aegean. The publication of new excavations and new readings of legacy data necessitate modification of earlier views about Cyprus’s political economy during the Middle Bronze Age, prompting this review. We discuss at some length the island’s settlement and mortuary records, materials related to internal production, external exchange and connectivities, and the earliest of the much discussed but still enigmatic fortifications. We suggest that Middle Bronze Age communities are likely to have been significantly more complex, mobile, and interconnected than once envisaged and that the changes that mark the closing years of this period and the transition to the internationalism of Late Bronze Age Cyprus represent the culmination of an evolving series of internal developments and external interactions.

The brief paper introduces a new project, co-hosted by Oxford University and Bilecik University and co-sponsored by British Institute at Ankara and Wainwright Fund, regarding the re-analysis of legacy survey materials from the Konya Plain. The pottery had been collected in the 1950s and 1960s by several BIAA members, including notably David French and James Mellaart, and is for the first time now re-assessed in detail both through functional chronotypology and through geochemical analysis, in order to provide a more refined understanding of settlement patterns and exchange networks in a diachronic perspective.

In this paper we provide a case study of the creation of the DCAL Research Data Archive at University College London. In doing so, we assess the various challenges associated with archiving large-scale legacy multimedia research data, given the lack of literature on archiving such datasets. We address issues such as the anonymisation of video research data, the ethical challenges of managing legacy data and historic consent, ownership considerations, the handling of large-size multimedia data, as well as the complexity of multi-project data from a number of researchers and legacy data from eleven years of research. (Accepted 17 Aug 2017.)

Für einen Ausschnitt der südlich von Rom gelegenen Campagna Romana werden ausgewählte Aspekte der Wohlstandsverteilung (mit Blick auf Architektur-und Ausstattungsluxus) im ländlichen Raum unter Verwendung eines quantitativen Analyseansatzes untersucht. Mithilfe der Kerndichteschätzung werden Räume identifiziert, in denen Fundstellen mit Wohlstandsindikatoren aus spätrepublikanischer Zeit und römischer Kaiserzeit in größter Dichte beieinander lagen. Das Untersuchungsgebiet orientiert sich am Kartenblatt Apiolae der Forma-Italiae-Reihe (DE ROSSI 1970).

Abstract Virtual Reality is becoming a complete and original way to leverage the enormous potential of the underwater cultural heritage world. In this paper, we illustrate how we used this tool and other 3D reconstruction to create a virtual experience on the Mercurio shipwreck. The brig Mercurio, sunk during the Battle of Grado (1812), currently lies at a depth of 17 m in the northern Adriatic Sea. Artifacts recovered during investigations made by the Universita Ca’ Foscari are now exposed in the Museum of the Sea in Caorle where a multimedia station has been installed. In order to create the virtual dive on this site, it was necessary to process legacy data from the photogrammetry surveys made during the excavation campaigns carried out when VR was unknown in archaeology. The paper presents this original way to create a virtual dive on an ancient shipwreck from archival and heterogeneous data.

Archaeological data are shadowy in a number of senses. Not only are they notoriously fragmentary but the conceptual and technical scaffolding on which archaeologists rely to constitute these data as evidence can be as constraining as it is enabling. A recurrent theme in internal archaeological debate is that reliance on sedimented layers of interpretative scaffolding carries the risk that “pre-understandings” configure what archaeologists recognize and record as primary data, and how they interpret it as evidence. The selective and destructive nature of data capture in archeology further suggests that there may be little scope for putting “legacy” data to work in new ways. And yet archaeologists have been strikingly successful in mining old datasets for new insights. I situate these concerns in the broader context of debate about the epistemic standing of the historical sciences, and then consider three strategies by which archaeologists address the challenges posed by legacy data. The first two – secondary retrieval and recontextualization – are a matter of reconfiguring the scaffolding that underpins evidential reasoning. The third turns on redeploying old data in the context of computational models that support the experimental simulation of the cultural systems and contexts under study.

The data from older archaeological surveys are incredibly important resources, often containing our only information about sites that
have been destroyed or that are now inaccessible. These surveys occurred before the advent of GPS technology, however, so their
spatial accuracy is often uncertain. Many types of locational errors accumulate in such “legacy” datasets, so using them in modern
GIS-based spatial analyses is frequently problematic. Many of the sources of error can be identified and quantified, however, and
systematic and random errors (derived mainly from Cartesian, rounding, and human error) can largely be mitigated by scanning the
original field maps, georectifying the maps to trusted imagery, and then digitizing sites directly. The remaining “mislocation” errors
derive from difficulty identifying locations in the field. The original survey notes may contain clues about mislocation error, but it is
impossible to mitigate these errors without re-recording site locations with more accurate survey instruments. Instead, I advocate the
use of GIS-based models to estimate the influence of specific surveying practices on site location accuracy. These models can provide
a standardized, quantifiable measure of mislocation error in a legacy dataset, which can help guide its use in modern GIS analyses
that require accurate site locations.
PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN A DIGITAL OFF-PRINT.

ABSTRACTArchaeologists have struggled to combine remotely sensed datasets with preexisting information for landscape-level analyses. In the American Southeast, for example, analyses of lidar data using automated feature extraction algorithms have led to the identification of over 40 potential new pre-European-contact Native American shell ring deposits in Beaufort County, South Carolina. Such datasets are vital for understanding settlement distributions, yet a comprehensive assessment requires remotely sensed and previously surveyed archaeological data. Here, we use legacy data and airborne lidar-derived information to conduct a series of point pattern analyses using spatial models that we designed to assess the factors that best explain the location of shell rings. The results reveal that ring deposit locations are highly clustered and best explained through a combination of environmental conditions such as distance to water and elevation as well as social factors.

Abstract The thousands of ancestral Indigenous mounds and earthworks of Eastern North America have long been a source of intrigue for diverse audiences. And although explanations have come a long way from the days of the Mound Builder Myth, there are avenues of inquiry that remain under-investigated. Here, we seek to let Indigenous ontologies lead the way by employing an interpretive lens based on bundling, a significant practice across many North American Indigenous peoples. We expand the notion of bundling to the landscape scale and, drawing on ethnohistoric and contemporary understandings of Anishinaabeg and Ho-Chunk ontologies, suggest that Great Lakes earthworks were brought into being for/through the bundling together of relationships between humans, other-than-human persons, and the land. This lens sets the scene for novel geospatial and statistical analyses of a legacy archaeological dataset of Late Precontact (ca. CE 1200–1600) earthworks in the Great Lakes, most of which have been destroyed. This study reinvigorates a fragmentary legacy data set, a practice that – during a time of pandemic-related restrictions on travel and field work – should become more prominent in archaeological investigations. This study illustrates the value of blending quantitative approaches and Indigenous ontologies to studies of landscape-scale processes and meanings.

The opportunities for new research and fresh insights inherent in legacy data are practically limitless. The same excavation data can tell a new story each time it is approached with a different research question or analytical methodology, and new publications of old data are keenly awaited by peers. Yet despite the obvious benefits of reappraising old data with new eyes, reanalyses of old sites still tend to rank low in institutional esteem. Proactive approaches are needed for legacy projects to be successful in our current tertiary culture.

For over two decades, a small team of researchers at the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens have been working to publish the field and study season data collected by a University of Sydney team at the site of Zagora on Andros from 1967 to 1974. Due to the nature of legacy data and limited funding, progress had been slow but steady until we radically revised our approach in recent years. This paper reflects on two key elements of our research programme that have proven successful, and why: the original digitisation and database design; and the creation of a volunteer programme to simultaneously aid in data processing as well as student professional training.

https://mediterraneanarcha.wixsite.com/maarc/meeting-2021

Tell Deir ‘Alla, one of the most important archaeological sites in the Jordan Valley dating from the Late Bronze Age to the Late Iron Age, was excavated by the late Dr H. J. Franken (Leiden University) during the 1960’s. While the Early Iron Age sequence was published in the late ‘60’s, it was limited to a generalised discussion of the stratigraphy, as well as a study of the pottery. Much more in-depth information is present in the raw excavation data, gathered in several boxes at Leiden University.
This archive from the 1960’s excavations at Tell Deir ‘Alla has been made available to the author for further research and publication. The current research aims to digitise and analyse the relevant archaeological strata for further use, as well as re-evaluate several of the early interpretations made concerning the Early Iron Age, and in particular Tell Deir ‘Alla’s role in it.
While working with legacy data is not without its challenges, it comes with many opportunities. This archive contains a wealth of data, consisting of for example excavation plans, elaborate cross-sections, photographs, find drawings, and metal samples. Most of these data have not before been subject to detailed analysis, and remain unpublished. By revisiting this old excavation archive from a modern perspective, the role of Tell Deir ‘Alla during this poorly understood period can be re-evaluated. Furthermore, by evaluating the finds in relation to their archaeological contexts, our understanding of life at Deir ‘Alla during the Early Iron Age can be refined.

In archaeological practice it is possible to encounter either single-phase sites or multi-phase sites. The latter allow continuity and change to be traced through the different phases of a site, but require far more investment in terms of time and energy, especially when the locus of activity occupied the same place through time. In these cases, previous phases can only be explored with small test-pits conducted under the floors of later structures, and therefore require methodologies that are specifically devised to minimize the risks caused by the high level of inference and subjectivity imposed by the partiality of the documentation that is accessible to the excavators. These sites, moreover, are often investigated over very long periods of time, with different methodologies of excavation and recording that create a large corpus of legacy data that necessitates a thorough re-assessment before being used. 
This book focuses on Phaistos, a site located in Crete, and aims to establish the stratigraphic sequence of the site in the period that preceded the construction of a palace of Minoan type (a court-centred building) by using the data collected during three major excavation campaigns conducted between 1900-1909; between 1951 and 1966; and between 2000 and 2005. It is not the publication of the relative chronology of the site, i.e. of the pottery groups that define the various phases of the Early Bronze Age, as this is in the process of being completed under the auspices of the Italian Archaeological School in Athens; nor is it the publication of the results of the contextual re-assessment of the site, which has already been presented and discussed in a monograph length study, which challenged the old orthodoxy that Prepalatial Phaistos operated as a straightforward settlement that grew through the various phases of the Early Bronze Age to become a proto-urban centre. This book has been written to clarify the methodology followed by the author in re-assessing the settlement history of Phaistos prior to the construction of the palace, a methodology that was based on the cross-correlation of more than 180 stratigraphies excavated during the past 100 years that had at its core V .La Rosa’s excavation strategy, known as “Riscavare lo scavato”. This excavation programme entailed the opening of new trenches near old ones, and thus linked past and present investigations providing the opportunity to see with new eyes stratifications that had been simply described and poorly illustrated by the previous excavators.

Legacy data have always been important for Mediterranean archaeologists. Over the past decade, one specific category of legacy data, that deriving from regional survey, has become particularly important. Not only has the scale of research questions become larger (requiring greater reliance on others' data), but the surface archaeological record is deteriorating (diminishing the ability to recover good data). The legacy data from many individual surveys have now been subject to digitisation and GIS analysis, successfully redeploying data collected for one purpose within new theoretical and interpretive frameworks. However, a key research focus is now comparative survey - using the results of many different Mediterranean surveys side-by-side to identify regional variability in settlement organisation, economy and demography. In order to overcome the significant methodological differences between these surveys, attention has focused on the documentation of metadata. Yet, many legacy data lack vital information about their creation and hence how they might be (re)interpreted and compared. GIS has been advanced as an environment in which to contain, order and analyse the data necessary for comparative survey. However, there is a danger that the technology will facilitate inappropriate use of these datasets in a way that fails to acknowledge and understand the very real differences between them. Here, emphasis is placed upon the use of GIS as a space for exploratory data analysis: a process that encompasses and emphasises the integral processes of digitisation, visualisation and simple analysis for the characterisation of datasets in order to derive an alternative form of metadata. Particular emphasis is placed upon the interaction of past human behaviour (e.g. in the Roman period) and archaeological recovery (i.e. the behaviour of archaeologists in the present, or recent past); these two sets of 'social action' combine to create distinctive archaeological datasets. This search for 'contextual' metadata within individual legacy survey datasets supplements more 'formal' metadata and facilitates both interpretation of individual surveys and comparison between them. Case studies from Italy are used to illustrate the kind of iterative and incremental approach to legacy survey data advocated.


Keywords: GIS, fieldwalking, Comparative regional survey, Metadata, Settlement, Italy.


Themed issue on "Dealing with Legacy Data" available at https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue24/index.html