http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/

Archaeology Data Service, York (2026)

14/10/2026

⭐ Don't forget to sign up for the latest ADS Newsletter, which comes out next Tuesday 20th November! ⭐

In this edition:
🎉 Celebrating 30 years of the ADS, with a look back at our birthday party
🔍 One year of the HSDS Catalogue of Services
🛡️ A new Guide to Good Practice on personal data in archaeological archives
⚔️ Collection Highlight: Viking inset lead weights
💻 Free Ingest training sessions, booking now through December
🐱 Insights from our annual CATs archiving strategy week

🎉 To sign up go to the ADS website homepage at https://buff.ly/4FqVL4L scroll to the bottom of the page ⬇️ and click the 'Subscribe to newsletter' button!

13/10/2026

🏺 Join us online for Trowels to Terabytes!

Nicky Garland from the ADS is giving a talk for UEA's ReproducibiliTea series on the accessibility and re-use of heritage data at the Archaeology Data Service.

🗓 Tuesday 20th October, 2-3pm
💻 Join on Teams: https://buff.ly/BgQjVq6
ℹ️ More info: https://buff.ly/9q2QXkD

Everyone is welcome. Do share with anyone who might be interested!

21/09/2026

🎉 The 30th anniversary of the ADS is growing closer, and we are counting down the days with our final highlight of ADS life. This week we are focusing on our teams and achievements across our services, starting with outreach. 🎉

Alongside our preservation services, we are increasingly looking to connect with communities outside of archaeology and heritage, reaching audiences who might not otherwise encounter our work.

From highlighting featured collections on our website and participating in the Festival of Archaeology, to connecting with new audiences at conferences across the UK and providing training and guidance, we want to help as many people as possible get the most from the data we hold.

To see what events and trainings we are hosting, as well as collections we are highlighting visit our news and events page: https://lnkd.in/eebUzif3

14/09/2026

🎉 We are officially half way through celebrating 30 years of the ADS, and this week we want to focus on our collections and highlight some of our favourites! 🎉

Starting with The Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi! Founded in 1949, The CVMA is the international research initiative dedicated to recording medieval stained glass. International committees came together to publish catalogues that include illustrations, colour plates and commentaries of details that are often difficult to examine in situ.

The CVMA hosts over 28,000 images of stained glass, digitised between 1999 and 2004. Around half of these come from CVMA’s own archive currently held by Historic England, in addition to collections of Victorian stained glass and ground-plans of nearly 200 churches courtesy of the Lambeth Palace Library Collection.

This striking collection includes an advanced search interface, as well as an interactive map that displays the number and location of stained glass windows images within the database.

👉 To find out more visit: https://lnkd.in/egA49_Hv

Take a look in our comments for more projects and archives from the last 30 we would like to highlight this week!

09/09/2026

🏺 Collection Highlight 🏺

This week we would like to highlight a recently released archive: Illustrated Artefact Catalogue of Viking Inset Lead Weights from Britain and Ireland.

This new archive provides an illustrated and searchable catalogue of over 390 Viking lead weights, sourced from Viking camps at Torksey and Aldwark, the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and private collections.

This catalogue sits alongside a related article published in Internet Archaeology, allowing readers to examine the dataset and its corresponding analysis side-by-side. This comprises a critical underexplored dataset for the Viking impact on Britain and Ireland, presenting new insights into the earliest years of migration and settlement.

To read more and explore this archive visit: https://buff.ly/tv8WqKt

07/09/2026

We are back celebrating 30 years of the ADS, and this week we are focusing on some of our key projects and achievements over the years, starting with the Heritage Science Data Service!

In late 2024 the ADS was thrilled to announce the launch of the Heritage Science Data Service. Through investment from RICHeS: Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science, the HSDS provides core digital research services that unlock potential for innovation in heritage science and conservation research.

The HSDS is developed by the ADS in partnership with STFC Hartree Centre, and supported by a consortium of key UK heritage bodies.

Over the last two years, the HSDS has established:
🌟An accredited and FAIR digital repository that preserves and provides access to critical heritage science data
🌟The HSDS Catalogue of Services - allowing user to discover heritage science facilities
🌟The HSDS Data Catalogue - allowing users to explore open access heritage science and conservation datasets and records
🌟In collaboration with STFC Hartree Centre, a suite of Virtual Research Environments (VREs)
🌟The HSDS Grants Programme

HSDS Service Manager Jo Tozer notes: "It has been a privilege to help lay the groundwork for the Heritage Science Data Service from day one, and I'm looking forward to seeing the transformative impact our services will have on improving access to heritage science data and empowering researchers and organisations to promote and discover scientific research collections, facilities and tools to advance the preservation and understanding of UK heritage."

👉 To find out more about the HSDS and how you can benefit from our services visit: https://hsds.ac.uk/

Take a look in our comments for more projects and achievements from the last 30 we would like to highlight this week!

31/08/2026

ADS turns 30!

2026 marks our 30th anniversary! To mark this milestone, we'll be highlighting 30 things that have stood out in the last 30 years.

The decision to create the ADS was made by a consortium of UK stakeholders, all dedicated to preserving our digital heritage data. The ADS was officially launched on 1 October 1996 (two years before Google!) with the mission to preserve, catalogue, and describe digital data generated in the course of archaeological research and to facilitate its reuse. Initial funding was a £216,000 commission from the Arts and Humanities Data Service to establish a data service for archaeology.

Director Julian Richards notes: “In 1996 not everyone thought ADS would survive but 30 years later, and with the help of many friends and supporters, and the work of many talented and dedicated staff we are stronger than ever”.

This week we want to focus on some of the things fundamental to the creation and success of the ADS. Take a look in our comments to read more!

13/08/2026

📢 Ingest training is back and is now open for booking!

Four months on from the launch of Ingest, we're kicking off a new programme of free online training sessions running from August through to December 2026. Whether you're yet to make your first deposit or you're ready to go deeper, there's a session designed for you.

Find out more here: https://buff.ly/AA1VWuo

🔹 Introduction to Ingest (1.5 hours)
New to Ingest? This session covers everything you need to know — from an overview of the system to a hands-on walkthrough of the deposit process. No prior experience required.

Dates: 27 Aug / 17 Sep / 15 Oct / 5 Nov / 10 Dec

🔹 Ingest in Practice (1.5 hours)
Already completed the intro? This follow-on session focuses on completing metadata templates and managing complex, multi-phased projects. Through realistic practice scenarios, you'll leave ready to handle any deposit.

Dates: 3 Sep / 24 Sep / 22 Oct / 26 Nov / 17 Dec

All sessions are free and take place online. Book online now!

👉 Training page: https://buff.ly/9BqsqTv
👉 Eventbrite: https://buff.ly/y8p5Hzm

11/08/2026

⭐ CATS Week 2026⭐

This July, our curatorial and technical staff took a break from archiving to discuss the major infrastructure changes in the last year.

From the launch of Ingest to the first HSDS data sets, we’ve been adapting our procedures to address these changes and to improve our workflows even further.

👉 To find out more in our latest blog, written by Olivia Foster visit: https://buff.ly/acavBU5

📸 Image of paining under normal light, then with X-ray revealing painting of a woman underneath. Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales (2026) Conservation Data from 'Dolbadarn Castle' by Wilson, 1996 to 2025 [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service

📸 Image of paining under normal light, then with X-ray revealing painting of a woman underneath. Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales (2026) Conservation Data from 'Dolbadarn Castle' by Wilson, 1996 to 2025 [data-set]. York: Archaeology Data Service

30/07/2026

📢 New Guide to Good Practice: A Guide to Personal Data in Archaeological Archives

We're pleased to announce the publication of the latest addition to our long-running Guides to Good Practice series!

Since GDPR was introduced, archaeology has had to adapt how it creates, manages and shares data. This new Guide resolves common misunderstandings around GDPR, drawing on the experience of data creators, managers and digital archivists. It offers practical advice for anyone working with archaeological data, including how to tell whether data is personal or sensitive (or both), and how this should shape handling across different roles.

Developed in collaboration between the Archaeology Data Service and UCL Institute of Archaeology, as part of the TETRARCHs project.

👉 Find out more here: https://buff.ly/7N1c7BF

📖 Read the Guide here, free and open access:
https://buff.ly/boS4Ig9

Archaeology Data Service

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