Squeezing Radiocarbon Data
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-11-21

Radiocarbon dates have revealed as one of the key elements in archaeology and thus they are used by the majority of researchers. Despite this fact, radiocarbon data are still spread over many databases, websites and local files using several different formats. The possibility to integrate all this information is challenging, but technically possible. This paper documents the creation of a search engine that stores the basic information radiocarbon data from all these websites, databases and even from local files. Having a huge quantity of radiocarbon dates to hand, allows new research questions concerning the relationships between different sites over time or between materials to be addressed. Besides, a better visibility of the radiocarbon data constitutes a positive factor for their owners. The aforementioned is achieved by creating a search engine that works in a similar way to Google. The radiocarbon search engine is composed by 3 elements, the gatherer, the database and the user interface. The gatherer is a set of small python programs that gather the information from websites, databases or local files and upload it to the database. They are custom made in order to integrate particular kinds of radiocarbon information. The database stores and indexes all the information and the user interface is a Google-like text box that provides a list of results along with their links in response to the user's query. The system points to the original website, if it exists, or provides other provenance information for the user on the origin of the Radiocarbon Date. In 100% functional prototype can be used at: http://www.ibercrono.org/goget

(Miquel Colobran, Joan Anton Barceló, Berta Morell)