CIDOC CRM and CRMarchaeo A vision of use for the 'future'
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 13/12/2018

Recent work by Holtorf and May et al (2018) has highlighted the simultaneous desire to pass archaeological knowledge on to the ‘future’; and uncertainty about what that ‘future’ will actually want of our vision of the past. The CIDOC CRM provides a framework for the integration of data from the so - called ‘Memory Institutions’. As such it lays the foundations for integrating data from different communities of documentation practice. In addition CRMarchaeo states that it is “intended to provide all necessary tools to manage and integrate existing documentation in order to formalise knowledge extracted from observations made by archaeologists, 
recorded in various ways and adopting different standards. In this sense, its purpose is to facilitate the semantic encoding, exchange, interoperability and access of existing archaeological documentation.”
Any attempt to regulate archaeological documentation is doomed to failure for two reasons. First is the “three archaeologists-
four opinions” meme and the second is the real danger of ossilising the discipline. So how do integrate access to existing archaeological documentation into a strategy for engaging with the future? This paper sets out a personal perspective on this question. It draws on over 30 years of designing cultural heritage information systems to lay out a vision of why data may be useful to the shadowy and elusive ‘future’ and perhaps more importantly a motivation for current practitioners to engage in the process.