Geosemantic Tools for Archaeological Research

GSTAR – USW Annual Postgraduate Researchers Presentation Day – Friday 5th May, 2015

Geosemantic Technologies for Archaeological Research: GSTAR

Paul CrippsUniversity of South Wales, Trefforest, UK• Hypermedia Research Group• Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Research GroupArchaeogeomancy, Salisbury, UKhttp://gstar.archaeogeomancy.net/

Linked Geospatial Data (LGD) in the context of archaeological research


Introduction

• Geospatial Semantics• Linked Data (LD)• Linked Geospatial Data

(LGD)• LGD for Archaeological

Research - GSTAR

Earthorama by spdorsey http://flic.kr/p/69C5QD


Geospatial Semantics

• “…research area combining Geographic Information Science (GIScience), spatial databases, cognitive science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Semantic Web” • Janowicz, K. et al., 2012.

• Concept of Linked Geospatial Data (LGD) as means of expressing spatial semantic information


Linked DataPublishing

& Querying framewor

k

Human &

Machine readabl

e

Logic, Rules, Reasoning, Inference,

Argumentation

Web services, stylesheets,

etc


Linked Data

• Linked Data comprises assertions about reality, stored as triples (rdf, ntriples, turtle, xml, etc)• <thing><relationship><thing>

• Each tag is:• a persistent uniform resource identifer • a literal value (string, number, date, etc)

• Concept based not term based• Ontologies define classes and relationships (owl, rdfs)• Vocabularies define content (skos)• Multilingual• Multiple classification schema


Linked Data

• <Stonehenge><hasType><henge>• <Stonehenge> is a uri for the monument• <hasType> is a uri for the relationship, from a

particular ontology (CIDOC CRM)• <henge> is a uri for the classification, from a

particular vocabulary provider (HeritageData SKOS)

• http://purl.org/heritagedata/schemes/eh_tmt2/concepts/70096

Circular or sub-circular enclosure defined by a bank and (usually internal) ditch, with one or two (rarely more) entrances. Of ceremonial/ritual function, they

contain a variety of internal features including timber or stone circles.


Linked Geospatial Data

• LGD also comprises assertions, including spatial• <Stonehenge><hasDepiction><polygon>• <Stonehenge> is a uri for the monument• <hasDepiction> is a uri for the relationship,

from a particular ontology (CRM EH)• <polygon> is a literal representing a particular

polygon depiction (BNG WKT) or a uri for a polygon in another resource (eg OS MasterMap)



• <Stone circle><spatially within><Stonehenge>• <Stone circle> is a uri for the monument• <spatially within> is a uri for the relationship,

from a particular ontology (GeoSPARQL)• <Stonehenge> is a uri for the monument



• Geometries• points, lines, polygons,

donuts, etc

• Relations & Functions• eg Within, Contains,

Intersects• eg Buffer

• Coordinate Reference Systems (CRS)• Transformations &

Projections

• Implements OGC standards• WKT, GML, Simple

Features

• Implements W3C standards• XML, RDF, RDFS, OWL,

SPARQL

• New OGC+W3C standards• GeoSPARQL


Colonisation of Britain Linked DataWessex Archaeology, Archaeology Data Service

Linked Data resource built using STELLAR Toolkit & Open Refine including Ordnance Survey Open Data


GSTAR

• Investigating:• Production of Linked (Geospatial) Data• Working with Linked (Geospatial) Data• For Archaeological research purposes

• Use cases:• Archaeological research scenarios (academic, commercial, etc)• How can geosemantic technologies support real-world

research processes?

• Using broad range of data from UK heritage institutions• Wiltshire Museums, Wiltshire Historic Environment Record,

English Heritage, Wessex Archaeology, Archaeology Data Service, Ordnance Survey


GSTAR


CRMEHgeo - Ontology Alignment

crmeh:EHE0007 Context crmeh:EHE0022 ContextDepiction

crmeh:EHP4i is depicted by

geo:Feature geo:hasGeometry

rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:subPropertyOf

sf:Polygon

rdfs:isA

Instance of

WKT Literal

geo:asWKT

RDFS GeoSPARQLSimple Features CRMEH

crm:E53 Place crm:E44 Place Appellation

crm:p87 is identified by

rdfs:subPropertyOf rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:subClassOf

CIDOC CRM


Research: Workflows

• Current workflow:• Request data• Collate & Process• Concordance• Produce new,

standalone resource• Assessment, Analysis• Snapshot reporting,

narratives• Archive• (Repeat…)

• Proposed workflow:• Consume data• Assessment,

Analysis• Augment data• Data driven

reporting, narratives


Research: Questions

• Investigating archaeological research questions

• Start with questions:• eg “Show me a distribution

density plot for each Parish in Study Area of all object records by object type from prehistoric sites of type barrow within 500m of a higher than average density of worked flint”

• Express as Queries• GeoSPARQL

• Visualise results, think, do

• Integration of cultural heritage resources:• Object Records from

Museum Collection• Site location, dating and

classification from HER• Fieldwalking data from

commercial contractor

• User Generated input• Spatial operators• Numeric operators• Sources• Web mapping APIs,

Linked Data APIs


Outputs

• Pilot Study• Evaluation: change of platforms

• Linked Data resource – complete• Publishing pipelines

• Demonstrators – in progress• Web based querying of heterogeneous resources• Spatial interfaces• Querying• Results

• Thesis


Acknowledgements

• Thanks to:• University of South Wales – funding, supervision, advice• Archaeology Data Service – data from their archives• Wessex Archaeology – data, photographs and images• Wiltshire Council – access to the Historic Environment Record (HER)

data• Wiltshire Museums – access to museum collections data

• Personal thanks• Supervisors/Advisors: Doug Tudhope, Mark Ware, Alex Lohfink• Research group: Ceri Binding, Andreas Vlachidis, Keith May• Peers and colleagues: Michael Charno, Chris Brayne, Gerald Heibel,

David Dawson

• Image Credit• Earthorama by spdorsey http://flic.kr/p/69C5QD


fin

• [email protected]• [email protected]•@pauljcripps

• gstar.archaeogeomancy.net• hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk• gis.research.southwales.ac.uk

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Geosemantic Tools for Archaeological Research