The cultural heritage sites of the Neolithic period (c. 7000–1700 BCE) have been catalogued over many years by teams of archaeologists, technicians and researchers from universities, local governments and local organisations. They use tools as simple as spreadsheets or local databases, partly accessible via websites or apps such as Megalithic Routes [1] or The Hunebed Centrum [9], The Megalithic Portal [2] with the Megalithic Portal app for iOS [3]. They present different findings in different parts of Europe in the form of photos, written texts, maps and PDF files with detailed information about the sites and their findings. The latter portal, for example, uses data provided collaboratively by a community of its users [2]. The problem is that this data is closed and not reusable or even directly accessible by the general public. These websites are a silo of information, not providing direct access to data, blocking the possibilities of new discoveries and at the same time providing only limited coverage of the available megalithic sites as no data exchange is possible. These solutions, although interesting since they make the information available to individuals and organisations, close the way to other possibilities. In order to make data reusable and exchangeable, a common data model needs to be developed, taking existing data and community requirements into account. And the data needs to be openly available. In fact, data can be structured in five-star metadata [4] in order to become open and interoperable.
Linked Open Data (LOD) [8] is a technology with enormous potential for innovation. When we talk about LOD we talk about the Semantic Web or the Web of Data. The Semantic Web is a paradigm of LOD where machines reason on data and offer new discoveries. This possibility of reasoning on a large scale, with data from different sources but structured in the same way, presents great potential for communities of practice. When the data is published in the Semantic Web, it becomes part of a large global database, with all the advantages that this can bring. The data provider is no longer isolated in its information silo, becoming part of the world of LOD; once the data of the cultural heritage sites of the Neolithic are published as LOD, it can also link to related resources that have already been published in the LOD cloud by galleries, libraries, archives or museums (GLAM community) or other, enriching the data. This possibility is an enormous advantage over any other technology since there are resources that probably have not been linked ever, or at least not treated by intelligent machines as related data. Examples of available data related to cultural heritage can be seen in the Pelagios portal [5], a project that links "places of the past", or the ecosystem of Europeana [6].
This project aims to provide a framework of interoperability for the assets (tangible and intangible) of the megalithic tradition of the European Neolithic. This framework is boosted by a data model (metadata application profile - MAP) that will lift the publication of interoperable “megalithic datasets”. Software applications will provide ways for end-users to be able to enjoy these cultural heritage items in all their dimensions, as already described, through the digital medium.
The scope of this project has no limits since the datasets are openly available through SPARQL endpoints or APIs, meaning that any entity can (re)use the MegaLOD datasets in other software applications. To demonstrate the usefulness of the data and to make it browsable and accessible by the general public, we will create a website and a virtual museum app, where the sites are presented.
-Mariana curado Malta | Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto (mariana.malta at fe.up.pt)
-João Muralha | Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Nova University of Lisbon
This project has contributions from the following students:
-Marco Oliveira (2022-2023) - Undergraduate project | Undergraduate in Information Sciences | ISCAP, Polytechnic University of Porto
-Américo Araújo (2022-2023) - Master Student | Master in Archaeology, University of Coimbra
-Domingos Santos (2024-2025) - Master Student | Master in Informatics and Computing Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto
[1] http://www.megalithicroutes.eu/en/megalithic-europe
[2] http://www.megalithic.co.uk/
[3] https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/pocket-guide-megaliths/id1069332919?mt=8
[4] https://5stardata.info/en/
[5] https://pelagios.org/ and https://peripleo.pelagios.org/about