The Acid Test: Exploring The Utility of The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) For Use in Applies Research
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)
The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) develops interoperability models for large, administrative archaeological resource inventory databases. As of September 2014, DINAA has integrated fifteen US State Historic Preservation Program databases that contain information on a half-million archaeological resources. Sensitive attributes, or information that could potentially threaten a cultural resource, are systematically scrubbed and never shared. DINAA provides a web-based tile-map interface that can filter site attributes and cultural time periods across incompatible database systems. Data are rendered within a spatially decimated (ca. 20-km2) tile grid, and query results can be exported in several formats or linked through stable web identifiers (e.g. JSON, GeoJSON, CSV, Microsoft Excel). This poster symposium explores analyses of settlement patterning, spatial distribution, resource management issues, and record comparability using data provided through DINAA. Other presentations emphasize interoperability and the power of linked data applications by making primary datasets available and connecting to DINAA through Universal Resource Identifiers (URIs). The application interface is hosted and developed through the Alexandria Archive Institute (Open Context). The research team includes members from 15 preservation offices, the University of Tennessee, Indiana University, Open Context, Michigan State University, and Grand Valley State. The National Science Foundation provided initial funding.
Other Keywords
Historic Archaeology •
Historical Archaeology •
digital archaeology •
open data •
DINAA, CRM, Cyberinfrastructure •
PIDBA Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) •
Open Linked Data •
Lithic Morphological Analysis •
Case study •
DINAA
Geographic Keywords
North America - Southeast •
North America - Midwest
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-4 of 4)
- Documents (4)
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Big Data/Big Picture Research: DINAA (The Digital Index of North American Archaeology) and the Things Half a Million Sites Can Tell Us (2015)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The DINAA project allows archaeologists to explore archaeological questions at a large scale, facilitating big picture research. Information from >500,000 archaeological sites in 15 states in Eastern North America is used to examine the effects of climate and vegetation change on human existence, in the past as well as in the future. Distribution maps illustrate where people were concentrated on the landscape at various times in the past, as well as areas they avoided, and environmental factors...
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Built to Last: The Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA) and Openly-shared Primary Data Meet the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) (2015)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA) freely shares primary and detailed attribute data on tens of thousands of ancient lithic tools spanning the Paleoindian and early Archaic time periods. As technology has changed over the last 25 years, research team volunteers work diligently to continue providing access to data through ever-more accessible and stable formats. Additionally, efforts concentrate on delivering data in formats that other researchers can deploy easily in their own...
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The modern United States of historical archaeology site reporting: A multi-state analysis of reported historical archaeological sites archived in the Digital Index of North American Archaeology. (2015)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
It is recognized that certain biases exist in the archaeological recording of historic sites and contexts in comparison to those from prehistory. Typically, these studies deal only with one state or a discrete region of interest due to the legacy limitations of archaeological record keeping in research and cultural resource management settings. This study demonstrates a first step toward providing historical archaeologists with greater insights into the larger effects of the many discrete...
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Ouiatenon and its Informational Analogs: Making Connections in Colonial Archaeology Less Hard to Handle with the Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) (2015)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
The archaeological remains of forts, outposts, settlements, extraction sites, and other activity areas established during European colonial ventures in North America span several hundred years and thousands of kilometers. The intricacies and interconnectedness of these sites are not easy to quantify or describe within the traditional limits of archaeological data management. The Digital Index of North American Archaeology (DINAA) can reveal colonial sites and their neighborhoods of effect on a...