Human Skeletal Collections aka RDFBones

Development of standards for the access to historical anthropological/anatomical research collections using the Freiburg Alexander Ecker collection as example

Objectives

This project develops a digital framework for managing research data from skeletal collections. There will be two main outputs:

• a digital standard for research data, formulated according to the specifications of the resource description framework (RDF)
• a server-based database application, implementing this standard

Abstract from the research proposal

Research collections of human skeletons from historical contexts exist at universities, museums and institutions concerned with the preservation of cultural heritage. The collections are of value to the history of science. As well they provide valuable research infrastructures for the anthropological reconstruction of biodiversity in prehistory and forensics and are used as reference samples in the development and test of osteological methods. There is a certain consensus in anthropology which methods are adequate for assessing a conventional set of biological traits on the skeleton. This, however, does not extend to data documentation or modern methodical approaches. The proposed project draws on the Alexander Ecker Skeletal Collection, kept at the Uniseum Freiburg, to develop a catalogue of data items referring to the anthropological material and its curation. This scheme will take the form of a standardised codebook for data collection. Data will be organised in a dynamic open-source database system which allows for later extensions to include additional research results and new digital data representations. The database structure will be flexible enough to connect to supraregional databases and enable the exchange of data, even between other local databases with diverging semantics. This will be performed in close collaboration with other institutions holding historical human skeletal collections.

Funding

The project is funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) as part of the funding scheme "Standards for accessing and/or digitalising objects in scientific collections" (Standardbildung zur Erschließung und/oder Digitalisierung von Obektgrattungen in wissenschaftlichen Sammlungen).

See a list of all projects funded through this scheme.

Further Information

Go to the project webpage to learn more.

Contact

Project administrator is Felix Engel.