A couple of years ago, our team presented GlobaLID. We are thrilled to announce that GlobaLID will be transformed into the full-fledged digital data infrastructure TerraLID. This transformation will be kicked off with a webinar on 14 May at 4 pm CEST (= 2 pm UTC) via Zoom. We are looking forward to present you our vision and discuss with you!

Find all details about the webinar on the project blog: https://archmetaldbm.github.io/Globalid/posts/20240414_Kick-off.html

You are cordially invited to submit an abstract to our session “Archaeometry: Geoscience-based approached for studying the human past” at the European Mineralogical Conference 2024 in Dublin (hybrid option available). We are looking forward to learn about your latest research in the field!

Submission is open until March, 22 and can be made at https://emc-2024.org/abstract-submission/.

I am organising the session 381 “Capacity Building for FAIR Data Sharing and Digital Preservation” at next year’s EAA in Rome, 28–31 August together with some colleagues from the archaeological sciences and representatives of the COST Action SEADDA.

The session aims to bring together repository providers, archaeologists, and archaeological scientists. We will discuss how data sharing can be facilitated, and how repositories and data infrastructures such as ARDIADNE plus can become as deeply rooted in the community as data haven as they need to be to ensure the preservation and frictionless sharing of data.

You are very welcome to join us and to submit an abstract! Submission deadline is 8 February.

The webpage for KEYS is now online! In summer 2022, I met Frank Mwale on the PANAF congress in Zanzibar (Tanzania). He is the executive director of the KEYS organisation in Malawi (KEYS = Knowledge Elders, Youth Share). Among other aims, KEYS collect and preserve traditional knowledge and uses it to improve environmental and living conditions of the local population. I offered to build this small webpage to increase their visibility and make it easier for them to provide information about who they are and what they do.

Check it out: www.keys.mw

A couple of months ago I joined the team at forschungsdaten.info, the central webpage for information about research data management in Germany. I will support the team mostly in creating a section about research data management in archaeology, but I will also contribute to the Geoscience section and the translation of more content to English.

Today we received the news that our proposal at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) for three years of funding for GlobaLID was successful! Being currently an unfunded side project for almost five years now, the proposal will allow us to finally turn GlobaLID into the research data infrastructure we envision it.

Besides the development of the research data infrastructure, the proposal focuses on community-building. We understand GlobaLID as a great opportunity to bring the lead isotope community closer together and to provide training to all colleagues interested in learning using lead isotope data for archaeological research. Moreover, such an infrastructure will only be widely accepted, if its major aspects were developed in close collaboration with the community, which requires constant discussion and feedback with its representatives. Only when doing so, GlobaLID will be able to match the needs of the community and to provide the functionality and usability that makes it a pleasant tool to work with. Consequently, the grant includes funding for the development of open educational resources to complement and extent our interactive textbook and for training and networking workshops. Exciting times are ahead!

Check out the GlobaLID webpage to stay tuned!

The first NADAC summer school took place in Berkeley and thanks to a travel grant of the Vereinigung von Freunden und Förderern der Goethe-Universität e.V. I was able to attend it. It was a great opportunity to meet and discuss with the other fellows of the NADAC institute – and to visit the USA for the first time. The workshop focussed on data management plans and linked data, but left enough time to get familiar with the projects of the other fellows and Berkeley.

I successfully defended my PhD thesis today (online). Only some administrative actions remain before I am officially awarded the title. If you want to learn more about the topic and outcomes of my PhD, have a look on the project page!

The special section of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports about the Contribution of Metal Corrosion Products to Archaeological Research is now complete. It was co-edited by Berber van der Meulen-van der Veen, Delphine Neff, Sharon Penton, and me. From the reconstruction of textiles metal objects were wrapped in when buried, preserved organic residues and large-scale analyses programmes for the reconstruction of metal flows to research to the formation of corrosion products – its eight papers cover various aspects and show that there is a lot of information that can be retrieved from corrosion products.

GlobaLID has now its own project webpage to present the project, the team behind it and to provide updates on all aspects of the project. Check it out and subscribe to the project blog to stay up-to-date.