Challenges of making collections accessible. The Cenieh collections’ system

Abstract

The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has had, since its foundation in 2009, the mission of curating and giving access to archaeological collections, particularly those recovered in the UNESCO site of Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain). In 2019 the CENIEH became officially the depository of Atapuerca collections in collaboration with the Museo de Burgos, Museo de Evolución Humana and Junta de Castilla y León. In this time huge efforts have been made not to improve the deposits and the facilities, but also to establish a framework for the digital archiving of the collections and to think how these collections will be accessible for researchers and public in the future. A dedicated software for managing the different collections has been developed. This includes not only the archeo-paleontological collections, but also reference collections as the COAC (Colección de Anatomía Comparada), Litho (Lithotheque), CET (Colección Experimental de Traceología), and Colección de Referencia de Antropología Dental. Also, since January 2019, the CENIEH is part of the AriadnePlus Consortium. The role of the CENIEH is to provide access to the huge amount of digital information stored and generated by the CENIEH. Different types of data (digital collections, document repositories, raw data, reports) are susceptible to being stored, managed and shared. This action requires a reflexion about how to store this data and how can we make it persistent, accessible and valuable for different kinds of audiencies (researchers, general public) without compromising the data itself, the ongoing research and the integrity of the archeological sites of provenance.