INTEROPERABILITY AND USE OF THE INRAP’S DATABASES THROUGH THE UTILIZATION OF EXTENSIONS OF THE CIDO
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2020-10-12

The national institute of preventive archeological research (INRAP) is the only national public institution of preventive archaeology in France whose mission bases on the recording, the archiving, the distribution and the valuation of archaeological knowledges produced during spatial planning works of the territory. In this context, the data recorded in the field databases establish essential sources, which require to be harmonized for good conservation and interrogation of archeological sites. Although the archaeological discipline already possesses its frameworks, it cannot aspire to a standardization because the conditions on the ground lead it to evolve.
Of this report emerges the existence of “regionalistic” databases in France, which the use to the CIDOC-CRM ontology allows to harmonize and to query. Archaeology is spatialized, in essence; so, the possibility of using the CRMarchaeo and the CRMgeo extensions of the CIDOC CRM, associated with the commun core of the CIDOC, as well as the existence of the 3M tool, allow facilitating the construction of models of description according to the RDF syntax. Thus, we realized the mapping or the matching of four databases created from different software, then thought of the elaboration of a non-specialized digital architecture because the same methods tend to organize archaeological surveys and excavations.This communication will present these matchings having used the 3M application ; then, it will make a synthesis of the difficulties and the assets raised during the use of the CIDOC CRM ontology, whether it is for the description of “Datas” or the generation of Metadatas”. Finally, it will be question of the future development from a module (an XML-RDF version or an OBDA system) will make external interrogation of the Inrap’s databases, either by means of servers in networks, or by the cartographic collaborative platform CAVIAR of the Inrap (Catalog of Visualization of the Archaeological Information).


Author(s): Le Goff, Emeline - Tuffery, Christophe (INRAP - National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research)