Working with AROLD. What is the ARchaeological Organic residues Literature Database ?
Abstract
For 50 years, Organic Residue Analysis (ORA) in archaeology has flourished and produced exponentially more data which has resulted in an extensive literature. To obtain an overview of the state of the art on lipids, proteins and short-chain polar acids preserved in archaeological archives, and to make it easier to consult and synthesize the data, we designed a database to gather data from published articles in a collaborative way.
Currently, The ARchaeological Organic residues Literature Database (AROLD) references data from 420 papers (i.e. 1329 archaeological sites, 1752 sample lots and 24005 archaeological samples). This tool can be used by ORA and non-ORA scientists, via two different user interfaces for collaborators and non-collaborators. The current compilation does not include any critical reviews of the published work, inviting readers to refer to the articles holding the data.
The collection and standardization work to build and fill in the database revealed a high variability of data in the literature and highlighted methodological discrepancies. In order to further complete the database and make the published data more accessible to non-ORA specialists, the database is intended to be open to new collaborations to consolidate its objectives and strengthen data moderation.
An article dedicated to the elaboration and functioning of this database has now been published: Prévost, C., Drieu, L., Pasqualini, A., & Regert, M. (2023). The ARchaeological Organic residues Literature Database (AROLD): construction of a tool for reviewing and querying published lipid data in organic residue analysis. Archaeometry. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12869.
Presenting a poster at ISBA is an opportunity to share this burgeoning work and to invite the community to get involved in this project and discuss with us how AROLD will be incremented and upgraded with future studies.
Origin | Files produced by the author(s) |
---|---|
licence |