ASU launches groundbreaking database of Sonoran Desert archaeology
One example of the types of items now available via the new digital archive: a photograph showing an excavation related to the 1933 and 1934 Hastings CWA project at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. Photo courtesy of the Center for Digital Antiquity
Archaeology is most famously known for methodically digging into the earth to uncover secrets of the past. But once the physical items have been unearthed, how can the information that has been gleaned then be stored, shared and further utilized?
This problem becomes especially true for large excavations — those spanning large swaths of land, decades of time and involving multiple entities.
Digital archives hold the key.
A newly published articleThe article “The Digital Archive of Huhugam Archaeology and the Reuse of Archaeological Information” was published in Advances in Archaeological Practice. highlights how members of Arizona State University's Center for Digital Antiquity, housed within the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, have been able to capture and digitize over 2,000 pieces of content, from documents to maps to photographs to data, and more.
These efforts, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, are the first of their kind to bring together regionally specific information from multiple sources, including federal, state, city, academic and cultural resource management firms.
The Center for Digital Antiquity is a team of archaeologists, digital curators and programmers who are working to make archaeological records findable, accessible and reusable for a collective benefit. To do so, they’ve developed the Digital Archaeological Record, or tDAR, a growing digital repository dedicated to transforming archaeological research by providing access to digital data. The repository currently holds over 425,000 resources from around the globe.
“In today’s ‘quick information’ and ‘big data’ world, the ability to quickly locate and reuse reliable information is essential,” said Christopher Nicholson, director of the Center for Digital Antiquity and lead author of the article.
The Digital Archive of Huhugam Archaeology, housed within tDAR, focuses on the archaeology of the ancient Sonoran Desert and the ancestors of the O’odham people living in central Arizona today.
The ancient ancestral inhabitants of this area occupied an incredible amount of land — including what are now parts of modern-day Phoenix and Tucson — developed sophisticated irrigation systems, had extensive trade systems and developed large towns. Their O'odham descendants still reside in Arizona today, as well as in northern Mexico.
Over the last 100 years, as the region began to develop, archaeologists have undertaken thousands of investigations in the area, according to the article, in an attempt to mitigate the impact of the modern built environment atop the Huhugam material cultural heritage. This is also in compliance with state and federal legislation, including the National Historic Preservation Act and the Arizona Antiquities Act.
What resulted from this are a variety of reports, with various findings among varying agencies, making any information difficult to track down. The Digital Archive of Huhugam Archaeology compiles that information into one online database — making these items discoverable and freely accessible to everyone.
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This image is a map of the prehistoric irrigation system of the Salt River Valley by Frank Midvale. The map shows how the canal system branches from the Salt River and where the river connects to the Gila River. The individual canals are named and listed, as are the prehistoric cities and important geographical locations.
Image courtesy of the Center for Digital Antiquity
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In spring 2005, students with the Legacies on the Landscape project, under the direction of ASU Associate Professor Matt Peeples, located and recorded outlying structures in the vicinity of Pueblo la Plata, on Perry Mesa. Outlying structures were mapped using the tape-and-compass method, resulting in plan maps by Will Russell.
Image courtesy of the Center for Digital Antiquity
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A map documenting archaeological site locations on Perry Mesa from Legacies on the Landscape Project, Arizona State University.
Image courtesy of the Center for Digital Antiquity
But the effort wasn’t easy, according to Nicholson.
“One of the biggest hurdles is outreach to prospective partners. We must show how sharing their data benefits not only the broader research community but also their own work. Building partnerships and trust is central to this effort, especially with the Four Southern Tribes,” Nicholson said.
“This includes ensuring they have the opportunity to review any potentially sensitive information and determine whether it should remain confidential. While this relationship-building takes time and care, the benefits — greater collaboration, richer datasets and more inclusive stewardship of cultural heritage — make the effort well worth it.”
The Center for Digital Antiquity team collaborated with six partners — including museums, cultural resource management firms and government entities — and combined it with information they already had housed within their tDAR database from three other partners to comprise the Digital Archive of Huhugam Archaeology. The team also worked very closely with the Four Southern Tribes Cultural Resources Working Group to develop proper policy and procedures for any items in the database that were deemed to be culturally sensitive or confidential.
In total, 2,196 digital resources were made available. The team was then able to assign descriptive metadata to aid in the findability of the resource in the database. This information is now open and available for use, and will continue to grow as more resources become available and are added to the archive.
“Building an archive like this creates real efficiencies for everyone — scholars who no longer have to search multiple sources to find what they need, cultural resource management firms working in the Valley who can access information on past investigations, and tribes who now have access to resources that were once held only by federal or state agencies or private firms,” Nicholson said.
“As a cyberinfrastructure platform for archaeology, tDAR makes it possible to efficiently reuse information not just for local projects, but for regional and even global studies of human culture and societies.
"In an era where exaggerated or unfounded claims about past societies circulate widely, open-access and appropriately controlled archives allow anyone to examine the real evidence from archaeological investigations and evaluate those claims for themselves.”
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