Archaeology Data Service

ADS is a world leader in promoting good practice in the use of digital data in archaeology and providing technical advice to the research community. As such ADS staff are encouraged to contribute to a wide variety of publications to publicise ADS activities and share our experience.

The Library was built 2016-2019 as part of Phase 2 of the HERALD project. HERALD was the name given to the works undertaken by the ADS and funded by Historic England as part of its HIAS programme to improve public access to historic environment data.

Phase 1 of the project focussed on research and user needs including: 🌟Enhancing the uploading unpublished fieldwork reports to the ADS 🌟Ensure that items in the library are freely accessible, searchable, linkable 🌟Extend the Library and integrate with the BIAB database

Digital preservation is at the heart of what we do, and it wouldn’t be possible without our amazing collections and archives team. From archiving collections big and small to raising awareness of the ADS as well as providing critical advice to depositors.

We deliver online and in person bespoke training to research organisations and practitioners in data management and digital archiving. We also have several training videos on our YouTube channel, as well as data management, access, and reuse guides on our website.

Developed by the ADS and partners since 1996, The Guides to Good Practice have been produced in a number of formats. Produced by our amazing standards team, the Guides provide information on the best way to create, manage, and document digital data to enable preservation, access, and reuse.

🎉 The 30th anniversary of the ADS is growing closer, and we are counting down the days with our final highlight of ADS life. This week we are focusing on our teams and achievements across our services, starting with outreach. 🎉

From highlighting featured collections on our website and participating in the Festival of Archaeology, to connecting with new audiences at conferences across the UK and providing training and guidance, we want to help as many people as possible get the most from the data we hold.

🎉 The 30th anniversary of the ADS is growing closer, and we are counting down the days with our final highlight of ADS life. This week we are focusing on our teams and achievements across our services, starting with outreach. 🎉

While the core activity of the ADS is the long-term digital preservation of the data entrusted to our care, all resources archived with the ADS are Open Access, and delivered through our website to facilitate reuse by the heritage sector and wider community.

Community archaeology groups across the UK play a significant role in investigating and reporting archaeological remains, contributing important work to our knowledge of heritage and history in the UK. Many reports of community based fieldwork and research are available for free via our website.

The Arch-I-Scan project, developed an image-recognition and machine-learning service, trained using collections from varying social and regional contexts in Roman Britain. This allowed Arch-I-Scan to recognise, record, and digitally collate large quantities of data from ceramic remains.

Early medieval England thus witnessed a golden age of arable farming. How, when and why this transformation occurred are some of the most enduring questions in British agricultural history, but more than a century of landscape-historical research has failed to produce a consensus.

From 2017 to 2022, the FeedSax project, based at the Universities of Oxford and Leicester, assembled and interrogated a vast bioarchaeological dataset, providing a new perspective on this pivotal aspect of early medieval history.

As part of HS2, archaeological investigation took place on the site of St James’s Burial Ground, a major 18th-19th century cemetery site. This led to over 100 archaeologists excavating and recording over 40,000 burials, the largest archaeological excavation of its kind ever undertaken in the UK.

Through a volunteer project, the stories of those from St James's Burial Ground were transcribed, creating a searchable digital archive. These records contain information about the thousands of ordinary Londoners, including their names, addresses, cause of death and more.

HS2 brought an unprecedented opportunity to explore our past through the country's largest ever linear infrastructure project. As part of this project the ADS has been able to provide a single archive for all the data produced as a result of the fieldwork, safeguarding it for future generations.

We are officially half way through celebrating 30 years of the ADS, and this week we want to focus on our collections and highlight some of our favourites! Starting with The CVMA! Founded in 1949, The CVMA is the international research initiative dedicated to recording medieval stained glass.