1. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
From interoperable to
interoperating Geosemantic
resources
Paul Cripps
University of South Wales,
Trefforest, UK
• Hypermedia Research Group
• Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) Research Group
Archaeogeomancy, Salisbury, UK
http://gstar.archaeogeomancy.net/
PracticalexamplesofproducingandusingLinked
GeospatialData(LGD)
Douglas Tudhope
University of South Wales,
Trefforest, UK
• Hypermedia Research Group

2. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Introduction
• Background
• Geospatial Semantics
• Linked Geospatial Data (LGD)
• LGD for Archaeological Research
• GSTAR
• Producing LGD
• Using LGD
• Case Study:
• Colonisation of Britain
• Case Study:
• CRMEHgeo
• Interoperable
• Interoperating
Earthorama by spdorsey http://flic.kr/p/69C5QD

3. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Geospatial Semantics
• “…research area combining Geographic
Information Science (GIScience), spatial
databases, cognitive science, Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and the Semantic Web”
• Janowicz, K. et al., 2012.
• Concept of Linked Geospatial Data (LGD)
as means of expressing spatial
information

4. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Linked Geospatial Data
• LD including spatial components
• Various forms, methods, approaches:
• Suit different use cases
• ‘Simple’ database, textual, LD approaches
• More complex GIS driven approaches
• Major research area
• W3C + OGC collaboration
• Semantic Web / Linked Data community
• Geospatial community

5. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Linked Geospatial Data
• Simple LGD:
• Placenames
• Gazetteers
• eg Plaiedes, Geonames, Ordnance Survey
• Leverage Linked Data approaches
• Coordinates ie point locations
• Numbers, text
• Leverage numeric approaches
• Mapping as points, markers

6. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Linked Geospatial Data
• Advanced LGD:
• Geometries
• points, lines, polygons,
donuts, etc
• Relations & Functions
• eg Within, Contains,
Intersects
• eg Buffer
• Coordinate Reference
Systems (CRS)
• Transformations &
Projections
• Implement OGC
standards
• WKT, GML, Simple
Features
• Implement W3C
standards
• XML, RDF, RDFS, OWL,
SPARQL
• New OGC+W3C
standards
• GeoSPARQL

7. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
LGD for Archaeological Research
• Real-world Archaeological Research
Questions can be complex:
• “Show me a distribution density plot for each
Parish in my Study Area of all object records by
type from prehistoric sites of type barrow
within 500m of a higher than average density
of worked flint”
• Currently not easy to do…
• Disparate sources, including Linked Data
• Semantic, Numeric, Spatial

8. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
GSTAR
• GeoSemantic Technologies for
Archaeological Research
• Doctoral research project
• Due for completion April 2016
• Building on:
• core CIDOC CRM
• CRMEH extension
• GeoSPARQL

9. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
GSTAR
• Investigating:
• Production of Linked (Geospatial) Data
• Working with Linked (Geospatial) Data
• For Archaeological research purposes
• Use cases:
• Archaeological research scenarios (academic,
commercial, etc)
• How can LGD support real-world research processes?
• Using range of data from UK institutions
• Wiltshire Museums, Wiltshire Historic Environment
Record, English Heritage, Wessex Archaeology,
Archaeology Data Service

10. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
GSTAR

11. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Producing LGD
• Leverage existing ontologies:
• To add place identifiers
• Placenames, UIDs, Coordinates
• CIDOC CRM: Place Appellation identifies Place
• To add depictions
• Geometries
• GeoSPARQL: Feature has Geometry (asWKT,
asGML)
• CSV, rDBMS, shp, gdb, xml pipelines
•  RDF, Turtle
•  Triplestore

12. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Using LGD
• Growing number of tools, platforms
• Data storage
• Processing
• Visualisation
• Spatially enabled triple stores
• eg Parliament, Oracle, etc
• Web Services to handle data
• Libraries for processing, conversions,
parsing, mapping, etc

13. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Using LGD – query
• Query using SPARQL
• Query using GeoSPARQL
• Extension of SPARQL; same syntax
• Compliant endpoints
• Wrappers, APIs, etc
• Maps!

14. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Using LGD – results
• Very flexible; many options
• Not always so straightforward…
• Bigger Toolbox: LD stack + FOSS webgis
stack
• Ontologies, Java, Jena, Joseki/Fuseki, GeoTools, Jetty,
Parliament, OpenLayers, GeoServer, etc
• RDF, JSON, XML, etc for use in applications
• Use XSLT/HTML/CSS/PHP etc
• Text, tables, images, etc
• Use WFS/GML/WKT/GeoJSON etc
• Web Maps

15. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Using LGD - GSTAR
• Working GeoSPARQL endpoint!
• Parliament
• Source data Linked Geospatial Data
• Interoperating geosemantic resources
• Ongoing: Building web page to house a
querying/browsing/results interface
• Linked Data widgets from HeritageData.org
• Map based interface
• Visualisations
• Capture query polygon  GeoSPARQL query

16. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
CASE STUDY
Colonisation of Britain

17. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Colonisation of Britain
• Digitisation project
• Undertaken by Wessex Archaeology
• Funded by English Heritage
• Deposited with Archaeology Data Service
• Linked Data component
• Outputs represented as Linked Data
• Uses CIDOC CRM
• Now online at ADS

18. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Colonisation of Britain - geo
• Names of Places
• UK administrative areas
• Parish, County
• Incorporates Ordnance Survey Open
Data
• Processed using Open Refine + OS API
• Potential to extend further by adding
GeoSPARQL nodes
• eg to add actual Parish boundaries

19. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
ColonisationofBritainLinkedData
Wessex Archaeology, Archaeology Data Service
Linked Data resource built using STELLAR Toolkit including Ordnance Survey Open Data

20. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
CASE STUDY
CRMEHgeo

21. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
CRMEHgeo
• Integration of CRMEH + GeoSPARQL
• Uses RDFS subClass & subProperty
• CRMEH classes inherit from CIDOC CRM &
GeoSPARQL
• Basic, lightweight solution cf eg CRMgeo
• But more limited in scope
• Can also be applied to parent CRM
classes
• Integration of CIDOC CRM + GeoSPARQL

22. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
CRMEHgeo
crmeh:EHE0007 Context crmeh:EHE0022 ContextDepiction
crmeh:EHP4i is depicted by
geo:Feature geo:hasGeometry
rdfs:subClassOf rdfs:subPropertyOf
sf:Polygon
rdfs:isA
Instance of
WKT
Literal
geo:asWKT
RDFS GeoSPARQLSimple FeaturesCRMEH
crm:E53 Place
crm:E44 Place
Appellation
crm:p87 is
identified by
rdfs:subPropertyOf rdfs:subClassOfrdfs:subClassOf
CIDOC CRM

23. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
CRMEHgeo
• Applied to source data for GSTAR
• Sources  QGIS, STELLAR Toolkit  Parliament
• Museum Collections
• MODES  XML  RDF + WKT
• Historic Environment Records
• HBSMR  Esri GDB, MS Access  RDF + WKT
• Commercial Archaeology Unit
• Databases/GIS  Txt, MS Access, Shp  RDF +
WKT

24. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
CRMEHgeo
• Process designed for GSTAR
• Compilation of LGD resource to answer PhD
research questions
• Wider applicability
• Source repo  STELLAR etc  LGD repo
• Entirely FOSS
• Scriptable, batchable
• Potential route to enable existing
resources…?

25. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
CONCLUSIONS
From Interoperable to Interoperating

26. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Interoperable
• Include CoB data in OS web map apps
• eg Distribution plans: display artefact
densities by administrative area
• eg Location plans: show in resources regarding
artefact types where examples have been
found
• Data is online, licensed & accessible
• So interoperable
• no tech, political barriers to interoperating…

27. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Interoperating
• GSTAR Demonstrator (in development)
• Data Layer complete
• Application Layers in progress
• Present a range of queries relating actual
use cases:
• Real world research questions
• Input from domain specialists
• Integrate multiple sources
• Inference: generation of relationships using spatial
components of sources
• Query via web map
• Present data via web map

28. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Interoperating
• Investigating
archaeological research
questions
• Start with questions:
• eg Show me a distribution
density plot for each Parish
in Study Area of all object
records by object type from
prehistoric sites of type
barrow within 500m of a
higher than average density
of worked flint
• Express as Queries
• GeoSPARQL
• Visualise results, think, do
• Integration of cultural
heritage resources:
• Object Records from
Museum Collection
• Site location, dating and
classification from HER
• Fieldwalking data from
commercial contractor
• User Generated input
• Spatial operators
• Numeric operators
• Sources
• Web mapping APIs,
Linked Data APIs

29. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Interoperating

30. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
Acknowledgements
• Thanks to:
• University of South Wales – funding, supervision, advice
• Archaeology Data Service – data from their archives
• Wessex Archaeology – data, photographs and images
• Wiltshire Council – access to the Historic Environment Record
(HER) data
• Wiltshire Museums – access to museum collections data
• Personal thanks
• Supervisors/Advisors: Doug Tudhope, Mark Ware, Alex Lohfink
• Research group: Ceri Binding, Andreas Vlachidis, Keith May
• Peers and colleagues: Michael Charno, Chris Brayne, Gerald
Heibel, David Dawson
• Image Credit
• Earthorama by spdorsey http://flic.kr/p/69C5QD

31. GSTAR – Computer Application & Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 2015 – Siena, March-April 2015
fin
• paul.cripps@southwales.ac.uk
• paul@archaeogeomancy.net
• @pauljcripps
• gstar.archaeogeomancy.net
• hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk
• gis.research.southwales.ac.uk