Data preservation, reuse, and synthesis are important goals in contemporary archaeological research that have been addressed by the recent collaboration of the Eastern Archaic Faunal Working Group (EAFWG). We used the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) to preserve 60 significant legacy faunal databases from 23 Archaic period archaeological sites located in several contiguous subregions of the interior North American Eastern Woodlands. In order to resolve the problem of synthesizing non-standardized databases, we used the ontology and integration tools available in tDAR to explore comparability and combine datasets so that our research questions about aquatic resource use during the Archaic could be addressed at multiple scales. The challenges of making digital databases accessible for reuse, including the addition of metadata, and of linking disparate data in queryable datasets are significant but worth the effort. Our experience provides one example of how collaborative research may productively resolve problems in making legacy data accessible and usable for synthetic archaeological research.

中文翻译：

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动物考古数据库保存、多标量数据集成以及东部古代动物工作组的合作

数据保存、再利用和综合是当代考古研究的重要目标，东部古代动物工作组 (EAFWG) 最近的合作已经解决了这些目标。我们使用数字考古记录 (tDAR) 保存了 60 个重要的遗留动物数据库，这些数据库来自位于北美东部林地内陆几个连续分区的 23 个古代考古遗址。为了解决综合非标准化数据库的问题，我们使用 tDAR 中可用的本体和集成工具来探索可比性和组合数据集，以便我们关于古代水生资源利用的研究问题可以在多个尺度上解决。使数字数据库可供重用的挑战，包括添加元数据，以及在可查询的数据集中链接不同的数据很重要，但值得付出努力。我们的经验提供了一个例子，说明协作研究如何有效地解决使遗留数据可访问和可用于合成考古研究的问题。