Building an Ontology-Oriented Archaeological Knowledge-Base “ArcOnBase” in Mainland Southeast Asia

Abstract

Using archaeological site data for Mainland Southeast Asia, this study aims to develop a knowledge-base and systemize ontology-oriented knowledge for site/artifact data. The description of site/artifact data with metainformation in general is extremely difficult in terms of standardization, and neither effective nor integrated management is possible using relational databases during recording/management, surveying/verification, or publication/feedback. Therefore, using site data (approx. 14,000 data points) on Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia, this study is to attempt the structuring/systemization of knowledge through morphological or network analysis of description data, and is to build the knowledge-base ArcOnBase using this structured knowledge. This empirical study will build a knowledge-base, making it possible to search data family that are semantically related in terms, for example, of characteristics and similarities such as regional characteristics and historical investigations, religion, ethnicity, government, and trade, and also includes the capability of accumulating newly derived knowledge. The study will contribute to the formulation of principles for sharing of resources related to cultural asset and heritage information.