How to Put Archaeological Geometric Data into Context? Representing Mining History Research with CIDOC CRM and Extensions

Abstract

A wealth of information on cultural heritage coming from archaeological investigations exists in the form of geometric information. Here we want to question how this geometric information relates back to the reality it was intended to document. Building upon the CIDOC CRM – an ontology to represent data for cultural heritage -we apply CRMgeo, an extension to the CIDOC CRM that treats space always in combination with time which is essential to archaeological investigations. Interdisciplinary research on mining sites in Austria within the project HIMAT serves as the field of application for showing our proposal how to put geometries into context. From the various research conducted in the course of HIMAT we selected prospection activities, archaeological excavations, survey and dendrochronological analysis for a prototypical modelling. We want to show how such a modelling may help to answer practical research questions like reconstructing the spatial organisation of the metallurgical production chain.