The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery
Introduction
The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (http://www.daacs.org ) is a web-based initiative designed to foster quantitative, synthetic archeological research on slavery throughout the Chesapeake, the Carolina Low Country and the Caribbean. The DAACS website offers scholars easy access to data from a large (currently 32) and steadily growing number archaeological sites located in these regions. The data conform to a single set of classification and measurement protocols, developed by DAACS staff and archaeologists working on the archaeology of slavery in the Chesapeake in a series of workshops at the beginning of the project. The protocols make possible seamless quantitative analysis of assemblage variation across multiple sites, making it easier for researchers to discover previously unknown spatial and temporal trends, recognize site-specific departures from them, and more effectively evaluate hypotheses about the causes of these archaeological patterns. The ultimate goal of DAACS is to help scholars from different disciplines use archaeological evidence to advance our historical understanding of the slave-based society that evolved in the Atlantic World during the colonial and ante-bellum periods. DAACS also serves as an experiment the use of the web to foster collaboration and data sharing among archaeologists.
Workflow
DAACS is based in the Archaeology Department at Monticello (http://www.monticello.org/archaeology/). It is staffed by a project manager, two full-time archaeological analysts, and several part-time analysts. Archaeological sites are chosen for inclusion in the project with the advice of a steering committee composed of archaeologists and historians working Atlantic slavery. Once a site is chosen, its artifact collections, field records, and artifact catalogs are brought to the DAACS lab. DAACS staff reanalyze from scratch artifacts that belong to classes with proven analytical utility using the DAACS protocols (e.g. ceramics, personal adornment, smoking pipes). Information on less informative classes (e.g. nails) is digitally recoded from preexisting catalog records, where these exist. Faunal remains are analyzed at Colonial Williamsburg’s Zooarchaeology Lab http://research.history.org/Archaeological_Research/Collections/CollZooarch.cfm).
Data on artifact and faunal assemblages, and the contexts from which they were excavated are collected in a SQL database the help of a customized data entry application. Site plans, maps, and images are digitized using a common set of conventions. Finally, a summary of documentary and archaeological research related to each site is prepared, usually by the principle investigator. Once DAACS analysis for a site is completed, artifact and context data are ported to MySQL database whose structure has been optimized for to speed query execution and data delivery on the web.
Website
The DAACS website contains five principle sections:
1. Query the Database lies at the heart of DAACS. Here researchers use a forms- based, point-and-click interface built in PHP, to generate sophisticated SQL queries. The queries allow users to retrieve and download data on artifact assemblages, faunal assemblage, mean ceramic dates and type frequencies underlying them at cross-cutting levels of aggregation: from individual contexts, to layers, to features, to groups of features, to seriation-based phases, to entire sites. In addition, queries generate data on spatial patterns in the distribution of artifacts, ready to be read into GIS applications for statistical mapping.
2. The Archaeological Sites section of the website contains a home page for each site, site background statements, Harris matrices, summaries of seriation-based intrasite chronologies, and downloadable site images and plans in a variety of graphic format.
3. About the Database documents DAACS data structures, offers guidelines on downloading, using, and citing data, and provides exhaustive documentation of the DAAS classification and measurement protocols for all artifact classes.
4. Research gives users access to conference papers and presentations that use DAACS data.
5. About DAACS outlines the goals and organization of the project, and offers credits to collaborators and funders.
Sustainability and Funding
DAACS began life as the Digital Archaeological Archive of Chesapeake Slavery in 2000 with an initial four-year grant from the Mellon Foundation. A second Mellon Grant in 2004 has allowed expansion of the geographical coverage of the project into the Low Country and Caribbean over a period of three years. In 2002 DAACS received a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to help build an endowment to guarantee the project's long-term sustainability. In 2005 Monticello donors met the 3-to-1, NEH-match requirement. The endowment will support in perpetuity the project manager, a part-time analyst, and hardware and software maintenance. This guarantees the project's continued existence and enables staff to add new data to the website, including generated by the archaeology department at Monticello. However, major new research initiatives will require additional grant funding.
