I've been thinking a bit more about this on my way to/from a meeting this
morning.  Actually it is an issue that we have even within Highland itself:
in Caithness it is reasonable to refer to a 'Norse' period, whereas we don't
find it useful to refer to such a period in Inverness.  Yet people want to
search on such terms.  So it is useful for users to see where different
terms are applied (which might say something about unchallenged
assumptions!) but not very useful for everyone to argue over where the limit
to the term 'Anglo-Saxon' or 'Roman' (etc) should be drawn.  

Equally the need to be able to do meaningful cross-border
(county/region/national) searches  also has to be accommodated.  It would be
almost as counter-productive to define standardised keywords separately for
England, Scotland and Wales based on the present borders as it would to have
different ones for Hampshire, Wiltshire and Dorset.

Now, I am unfamiliar with Exegesis so I don't know how it works.  But I hope
it would be flexible enough to accommodate the following suggestion:

It seems to me that the best way to deal with the need to deal with
'culturally defined' inquiries might be to define a master list of periods
to include (as far as possible) all of the permutations likely to be
encountered in the British Isles / Western Europe.  Individual SMRs / NMRs
would then select those keywords they judged relevant to the individual
site.  This would in effect let the geographical areas define themselves,
regardless of modern administrative boundaries,  which would be interesting
in itself.  By searching the NMRS (for example) for all sites defined as
'Pictish' , or 'Roman' the user would automatically discover the current
geographical extent of the use of the term.  It would mean a very long
keyword list, but in practice local SMRs would only need to load or use
those which applied to their own areas.

I think we need to draw attention to and accommodate, rather than ignore,
the variations in date ranges given to the Iron Age (and other periods).  So
in the model I suggest above, the keyword list could include 

Iron Age (600 BC-AD 500)
'Pre-Roman' Iron Age (700 BC-55 BC)
Roman (55 BC-AD 450)
Pictish (AD 300-1200)
Anglo-Saxon (AD 400 - 1100)


(What about 'Belgic'?) 

etc.


This would draw the user's attention to regional variations - including
those which can apply within England itself.  

On the second point, Bruce Howard says, 

"...we should also be moving towards making it easier for
researchers to know that when they are searching for data on for example the
Iron Age to know that they will get a similar date range no matter which
county or region they are searching in.  This to me is one of the underlying
principles of data standards."


Surely the only way to accommodate this requirement is to make such
categories (a) very broad (to include the regional variations);(b)
compulsory (entered alongside the regional ones), and (c) agreed for Western
Europe (or at least across the whole UK).

Every feature entered in every SMR or NMR or similar database in Western
Europe should (I suggest) be allocated to one or more of the following:

Palaeolithic (pre-8000 BC)
Mesolithic (8000-4000 BC)
Neolithic (4000-2400 BC)
Bronze Age (2400-500 BC)
Iron Age (600 BC-AD 500)
Early Medieval (AD 500 - AD 1200)
Late Medieval (AD 1200 - AD 1500)
Post Medieval (post-AD 1500)

I would hope that we might get reasonable Europe-wide consensus on these.

Every (English/Lowland Scottish) Roman site would therefore be entered as 

"Roman (55 BC - AD 450); Iron Age (700 BC - AD 500)"

as well as under any more specific category that might apply, if known, such
as "AD 100-200".

Roman sites in France and Italy would obviously have a much earlier start
date for the Roman period, but in Ireland or Scandinavia would ( presumably)
not appear at all.  However all sites across Europe from the period, whether
within the Empire or outside it, could be assigned to the same 'Iron Age'
category.

Early 'Anglo-Saxon' sites might I suppose straddle the line between 'Iron
Age' and 'Early Medieval' in which case they would have to be entered as
both.

I would be interested to hear from list members what they think of this.

John Wood



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John Wood
Senior Archaeologist
Planning and Development Service
The Highland Council
Glenurquhart Road
Inverness  IV3  5NX

Tel:  01463  702502
Fax: 01463 702298

Email:  [log in to unmask]
Web:  http://www.higharch.demon.co.uk





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