ADS Update

Stuart Jeffrey

This article covers just a few of the new resources made available via the ADS since the last issue of the newsletter. A quick visit to the Collection History page of our website will provide the complete list. It is also possible to be kept up to date on new releases via the ADS RSS feed available from our home page.

A perfect complement to the recently updated Defence of Britain database was released in the form of the England's Army Camps project covering documentary evidence and field checking for these fascinating sites from 1858-2000.(http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?armycamp_eh_2006).

At the opposite end of the spectrum of periods covered, December saw the release of a major resource detailing experimental butchery approaches for understanding Acheulean handaxe technology (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?butchery_ba_2006).

Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF) projects also continued to generate a range of exciting material. In January as part of the ALSF strand, a study of a very substantial collection of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts was released. It focuses on the Kentish finds made by Henry Stopes, a private collector, in the late 19th century. (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?stopes_eh_2007)

In May a comprehensive database of ancient coins was made available online. Holding details of 52,813 coins (mostly Roman) from 1172 separate finds in Wales, it is an invaluable new resource for the study of this material allowing analysis of Iron Age and Roman coins by a number of numismatic criteria. (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?iarcw_bcs_2007).

Stop Press...

The ADS has just received news that it has been awarded funding for a major research bid submitted to the e-Science Research Grants scheme (AHRC-EPSRC-JISC). This project is in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield and has a number of strands including data mining, natural language processing and ontology development. We fully expect this to facilitate a major enhancement of the ADS's ArchSearch facility and ultimately make more and richer archaeological information available to our users. Full details of the project and its progress will appear in future editions of this newsletter.

Stuart Jeffrey is the ADS User Services Manager, sj523@york.ac.uk