In England the vast majority of archaeological fieldwork is carried out by commercial organisations, which operate to specifications developed by curatorial archaeologists working in local government planning offices. Thus while many of the consumers of archaeological information sit within the offices and lecture theatres of universities, the majority of the producers work in the commercial or governmental sectors. Additionally the University community is rapidly losing touch with the latest developments in field archaeology as unfortunately the majority of fieldwork reports rarely enter the public or academic domains.
Since 1990 an immense mountain of grey literature, approximately 17,000 unpublished reports, has grown to unmanageable proportions. Yet these data provide the primary resource for any researchers, in Britain or abroad, interested in the current state of knowledge about our heritage.
The OASIS project sought to tackle the problem of a lack of knowledge about or access to the latest research data in three specific ways:
1. through the creation of a single index to the grey literature of archaeological assessment reports and excavation archives in England
2. through the provision of on-line access to that index
3. through the establishment of a mechanism to facilitate the continued collection of this research data in the long-term
OASIS has delivered, for the first time, a fully unified record for archaeological interventions in England from around 1700 to 1998. This is made up of:
The records are catalogued according to the Dublin Core metadata element set and provide:
OASIS has enabled the ADS to develop a map based search interface for ArchSearch, the online ADS catalogue of the ADS. Map-based searching is intuitive and provides easy access to the sophisticated research data held by the ADS. Such an interface is not intimidating to the novice user and quickly allows them to gain information about the archaeology of a particular geo-spatial location. A whole range of other search techniques are available for more sophisticated users, with more complex queries.
The records are also available via the AHDS Z39.50 interoperable catalogue.
Archaeological excavation in England continues apace, with many thousands of excavations being carried out every year. In order to keep the scholarly community up-to-date with the latest discoveries OASIS needed to be sustainable. Consequently an on-line data capture form has been developed which will be used by contracting units and university excavation projects alike to notify the National Monuments Record of the latest archaeological activity, these records will then be passed to the ADS at six monthly intervals to be added to ArchSearch. Consequently information about the latest archaeological discoveries will be in the academic domain within a few months of the work actually taking place.
OASIS brings together four strategic partners under the umbrella of the University of York:
Project Manager
Catherine HardmanTel: +44 (0)1904 433953
Fax: +44 (0)1904 433939
E-mail: csh3@york.ac.uk
The project is based at
Archaeology Data ServiceContent: Gill Davenport
Last updated 3 July 2002