Archaeological Archives

A Model for the Description of Archaeological Archives

The Information Management & Collections team of the Centre for Archaeology has worked within a defined archaeological archives structure since 1990, and this document represents the results of a considerable reworking and refinement of this archive structure and its application.

The management of archaeological archives has gained increasing recognition within the discipline, and much work has been done on related issues such as curation and transfer. However there is an identifiable gap in information pertaining to the organisation and description of archives, a key element in making accessible the archaeological data held within them. The model for archival description represents an attempt to begin the process of filling that gap, and is presented as one example of how the MAD2 approach to archival description can be adapted for specialist archives. The implementation of the model described in this document relates purely to Centre for Archaeology practice and should therefore not be regarded as definitive, but rather as a stimulus for debate. The model is based on two key concepts: firstly, that any archive can be described in a hierarchical manner, at varying levels of detail; and secondly, that the description at each level should be composed of a standardised set of elements.

The model comprises three parts:

• A model of the conceptual organisation of the archive
• A description of the component classes of material
• A definition of the data elements required to describe each archival entity

The document concludes with a discussion of the practical aspects of implementing the model, with particular reference to the CASPAR database system developed by the Information Management & Collections team for this purpose.

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Request for Comment

This document is aimed at all those involved in the creation or management of archaeological archives and, in disseminating this document via the Internet, we hope to stimulate debate in what has so far been a neglected but vital area of archaeological project management. We would welcome feedback, and comment can be addressed to the authors at the E-mail or postal addresses below:

E-mail: kathy.perrin@english-heritage.org.uk

Postal: Kathy Perrin,
English Heritage,
Fort Cumberland,
Fort Cumberland Road,
Eastney,
Portsmouth,
PO4 9LD.