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1. School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, UK. Email: sc532@leicester.ac.uk
2. Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, Worcestershire County Council, UK. Email: Jevans1@worcestershire.gov.uk

Cite this as: Colley, S. and Evans, J. 2018 Big Data Analyses of Roman Tableware: information standards, digital technologies and research collaboration, Internet Archaeology 50. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.50.19

Summary

Archaeologists in the UK and elsewhere have developed standards and guidelines for recording, analysing and archiving information about Roman pottery. A survey of Roman pottery specialists conducted for the 'Big Data on the Roman Table' (BDRT) research network showed significant variation by country, institution, project and individual researcher in approaches to pottery analysis, including use of terminology, the kinds of quantitative and qualitative data recorded and adoption of digital methods. This concurs with other studies and professional discussions at BDRT workshops and elsewhere. This article discusses recent UK initiatives to improve information standards in Roman pottery studies. It then considers their implications for future international cooperation, using digital methods needed to support the research and other objectives of the BDRT network.

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• Keywords: pottery recording standards, archaeological information standards, ontologies, online research collaboration, data visualisation
• This open access publication was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.