A Standardized Geodatabase Form for Cultural Resource Management

Abstract

The field of archaeology has been absent of a standardized geodatabase system to store, share, analyze and display data collected from archaeological investigation. Data storage and database system vary greatly between cultural resource management firms and research institutions. This lack of standardization has led to the inability of the collected data to be utilized to its full potential. The cultural resource field generates massive amounts of data on archaeological sites each quarter that is rarely seen outside of the company. This inability to collaborate and share data with not only other archaeologists, but researchers from other fields severely limits the understanding we can learn from the data. For my GIS Capstone project, I chose to look at how to design a beginning of a standardized geodatabase model that could easily be implemented by those in the archaeology field. A base work that would hold the basic elements that were needed and most common for the archaeology field. This model should help improve efficiency of data management as well as help facilitate further analysis of the information collected.