Minutes of the meeting in: Nairobi, Kenya, 23-28 September 1996

Participants:

Henrik Jarl Hansen, National Museum of Denmark, Denmark (Chair)

Judith Marsh, Parks Canada, Canada (Membership)

Veletta Canouts, National Parks Service, USA

Gillian Quine, National Monuments Record, UK (Secretary)

Stephen Stead, Consultant, Paveprime, UK

Athman L. Omar, Fort Jesus Museum, Mombasa, Kenya

Churchill Ottendo, Fort Jesus Museum, Mombasa, Kenya

Mohamed Mchulla, Fort Jesus Museum, Mombasa, Kenya

Wazna Mwadime, Fort Jesus Museum, Mombasa, Kenya

Paul Odondo, Fort Jesus Museum, Mombasa, Kenya

Benson Odeny-Obul, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

Freda Nkirote, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

Isaya Oujala, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya

Walid Sharif, Ministry of Culture, Israel

Chantal Radimicahy, Museum of Art and Archaeology, Madagascar

Robin Thornes, The Getty Information Institute, UK

The working group met prior to its scheduled meetings to hold a workshop on the Draft International Core Data Standard for Archaeological Sites and Monuments and the survey of national and regional archaeological records. The workshop was attended by some of the new members of the working group listed above, and by Dr Siegfied Krause (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Germany), Ifigenia Dionissiadu (Benaki Museum, Greece) and Jacqui Zak (The Getty Information Institute, USA).

At the first formal meeting of the group, Henrik Hansen welcomed old and new members to Nairobi. The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved, and an agenda was agreed.

Draft International Core Data Standard for Sites and Monuments

Stephen Stead gave a short presentation on the development of the core data standard, for the benefit of new members, and worked through the underlying methodology. Henrik Hansen followed this with a demonstration of the Danish prototype application. Athman Omar briefly outlined the history of archaeological recording in Kenya, particularly along the east coast, and explained the principles of the new recording system being developed at Fort Jesus Museum. He emphasised the importance of security copying data and raised the question as to whether it would be possible to bank or store information from Kenya in another country.

The group discussed whether the core data standard should be applicable to the architectural as well as archaeological heritage or whether a separate standard was required. New members stressed the importance of being able to record buildings, particularly in the context of urban archaeology. Henrik Hansen explained that the standard had been based on the Council of Europe's core data standard for the architectural heritage and that it had been designed in such a way as to be compatible with this.

The development of the Danish prototype application had raised a number of problems, which Stephen Stead and Gillian Quine had discussed with the application developers at the Computer Applications in Archaeology conference in Iasi, Romania, in March 1996. The group worked through these issues.

The main problem identified was a temporal one. The core data standard needs to cater for the recording of three types of time: real time (used to date sites); event time (archaeological events which cause the creation or revision of knowledge about a site or monument), and administrative time (used for database and record system management). There was an extended discussion on the extent to which timestamping should be included in the model. The group agreed that Chapter 2: The Theoretical Framework should be expanded to include archaeological events and that a new section should be added to Chapter 4: Implementing the Core Data Standard to explore the issue of timestamping changes to the database or record system. Stephen Stead drafted the revised chapters and the group agreed them with minor alterations. Changes were made to the conceptual model and the data model to include Events. The name Archaeological Event in Cross-References was changed to Activities Archives. The new section on Events in Chapter 3: The Core Data Standard will be inserted after Location.

The development of the Danish prototype had also indicated a lack of understanding of the conceptual framework. The group agreed that the detailed descriptions of the key elements, which had been moved to Chapter 5: Glossary, should be inserted back into Chapter 2 and that Stephen Stead's ship and pit diagrams should be included to facilitate understanding. It was also agreed that there should be a note in Chapter 4 explaining the recording of physical groups in computerised systems. Stephen Stead drafted these changes and these were approved by the working group.

Topology - the spatial coordinates section must include solids.

The working group also liaised with the Data Model Working Group during the conference to ensure that each group was aware of current thinking, relevant issues and the importance of compatibility. The Data Model Working group had looked at how it could map the archaeological core data to the CIDOC data model. It will incorporate some of the archaeological information into the model. The working group raised the following points:

The model should be updated to be object oriented.

Monument Name cannot be unique. Agreed.

Qualifier of relationship - there should be much stronger wording in this section. The entry must be one of the following....

Topology - need to add in interfaces. Interfaces will have to be explained in the glossary. Agreed.

Condition - condition always has an associated person/organisation in the CIDOC model. The working group decided that the assessment of condition was an event and that it would be necessary to add person/organisation to Events rather than Condition. It agreed that Date condition assessed should be removed from Physical Condition. It was emphasised, however, that it would have to be made very clear in the Physical Condition preamble that condition must be linked to an event. It was decided that the same principle would apply to Designation/Protection Status so that when and who should be recorded in Events.

The group, having decided these changes, debated as to whether the revised standard could still be implemented in a manual record system. It was agreed that it would be possible to design a proforma which would allow for a relationship between a site or monument and events to be expressed. A draft proforma will be included in the revised standard.

In addition, it was recognised that Chapter 1: The Introduction would need to be heavily revised, not only to take into account the agreed changes but also to make it clear that it was necessary, following implementation, to revise the model and include more information about certain implementation issues. It was felt that people would find it difficult to understand why such fundamental revision were necessary unless there was full explanation. Furthermore, the group concurred that the revised standard should be tested and implemented before publication, and it was suggested that an application (Windows 95) could be produced for distribution with the standard. It was agreed that the title of the standard would be changed to International Core Data Standard for Archaeological Sites and Monuments with implementation notes.

The group discussed the usefulness of including the examples of existing data models in the revised standard. It was agreed that these should be removed from this version as they were already out-of-date.

Actions:

1.1 Stephen Stead to revise and update the standard by the end of 1996 for distribution to members of the working group and those organisations and individuals who have begun, or are thinking of, implementing the standard (Brazil and South Africa).

1.2. Henrik Hansen to explore the possibility of DKC being able to develop the new application for demonstration at the ICOM meeting in Melbourne 1998.

1.3 Veletta Canouts to produce, and make available on the WEB, a commentary on the revision work being carried out by the CIDOC conference in Nuremberg 1997.

Survey of National Archaeological Records

Judy Marsh had prepared a summary analysis of the questionnaire responses relating to the inventory section, which was circulated to members of the group. The group was pleased with the response it had received from national and regional organisations and felt that it had created a very useful database of information. It was agreed that the results of the analysis should be disseminated to the respondents, with a list of names of all organisations which had contributed to the survey, and a covering letter from Henrik Hansen. The group decided that the data should be held in the FOXPRO database, produced by Judith Marsh, and that it should be available if requested.

It was suggested that the survey and the database could be promoted in various newsletters and journals, eg the Archaeological Computing Newsletter, and that the summary and list of respondents could be included in the working group's WEB pages. The list of respondents is the most comprehensive record of national and regional archaeological records worldwide and, as such, is a useful resource.The group agreed that the WEB pages should include also a copy of the questionnaire, which will continue to be sent out to relevant organisations. The full list of names and addresses will be available from the working group on request.

Actions:

2.1 Judith Marsh will reproduce the summary document and send it out to all members of the working group and respondents.

2.2 Henrik Hansen will write a covering letter to accompany the summary.

2.3 All members to promote the survey and database in newsletters, bulletins and journals.

2.4 Judith Marsh and Veletta Canouts to mount summary and questionnaire on WEB pages.

One World Archaeology

Gillian Quine explained the background to the production of the book, gave an outline of its contents and reported on progress to date. Members of the working group who had promised contributions were asked to send in their chapters and new members were asked to consider whether they would be willing and able to contribute. Henrik Hansen and Gillian Quine, as joint editors, were very keen to include chapters from non-European countries.

Actions:

3.1 Working group members to send chapters to Henrik Hansen or Gillian Quine by November 1996.

Archaeological Sites Working Group WEB pages

The group agreed that it needs to revise its current WEB pages, which include information about the group and the core data standard. It was suggested that an interesting addition to the pages would be an article by a new member of the group, to give a different perspective its role and work.

Actions:

4.1 Updates to be coordinated by Judy Marsh and Veletta Canouts.

4.2 Henrik Hansen to carry out updating at the WEB site.

4.3 Churchill Ottendo to write article as new member.

New Projects

The following projects were proposed:

Mapping of cultural periods against time and space. Stephen Stead explained that this project would tie in closely with the work of the Data Model Working Group, which intends to produce date ranges for cultural periods to aid retrieval of information and to link cultural periods with geographic places. He also indicated that he had found an industrial sponsor for this work. The group recognised that this mapping exercise would be extremely valuable but was concerned about the difficulties in collecting the data worldwide.

Actions:

5.1 Stephen Stead and Walid Sharif to produce a project brief outlining the methodology and data structure to be used and to follow this up with a pilot to test the project's viability.

Mapping of archaeological objects standard to the core data standard for archaeological sites and monuments.

The group agreed that there was a need to describe how to link object and monument information in the core data standard and that a separate chapter addressing this issue should be included. Robin Thornes indicated that The Getty Information Institute would be interested in this project.

Actions:

5.2 Robin Thornes and Stephen Stead to map standards and produce new chapter.

Data exchange project to test the core data standard. It was agreed that this project was a low priority and that it would be more appropriate once the core data standard has been revised. It was suggested that the Danish National Museum and the National Monuments Record in England could trial an exchange of data on Bronze Age sites.

Actions:

5.3 Henrik Hansen and Gillian Quine to liaise once the revised core data standard has been produced.

Updating of the core data standard to include the recording of architectural monuments.

Actions:

5.4 Gillian Quine and Stephen Stead to review the core data standard and the Council of Europe's architectural standard to determine the additional information which needs to be incorporated and how this should be done.

5.5 Henrik Hansen to inform the CIDOC board that the working group will be expanding its remit and update information about the group to include the architectural as well as archaeological heritage.

The production of standards relating to the abandonment of project information and materials by researchers. This would include minimum standards for depositing objects; conditions for archaeological permits to ensure that information is not lost or separated from objects, and the inclusion of conditions for the conservation of objects.

Actions:

5.6 Judy Marsh, Athman Omar and Walid Sharif to collaborate on the production of a project brief.

5.7 Gillian Quine to send Judy Marsh information on archive transfer standards.

All actions to be completed by the next formal meeting of the group.

Date and place of next meeting

The next meeting of the group will be at the Computer Applications in Archaeology conference in Birmingham, 10th-13th April 1997. It was suggested that a meeting prior to the conference would be preferable.

Actions:

6.1. Stephen Stead to keep members informed about conference details and to ask the Chair of CAA to send invitations to members where necessary. Also to make arrangements for a meeting room.

6.2. Henrik Hansen, as Chair of the Archaeological Sites Working Group, to send invitations to members of the working group to attend a working group meeting.

Before the meeting adjourned, Henrik Hansen thanked everyone for their continued support of the group and for their hard work during the conference. In particular, he thanked new delegates for their contributions and encouraged them to maintain contact with the group.

Gillian Quine 4/10/96