The ArchaeoTech Podcast · The Archaeology Podcast Network

A update on tDAR with Keith Kintigh - Ep 210

·41 min·2 clips

TIDAR can split confidential reports from redacted public versions and still let data owners approve access requests.

1. The Archaeotech Podcast episode 210 focuses on TIDAR and digital preservation in archaeology. 2. Hosts Chris Webster and Paul Zimmerman interview Dr. Keith Kintigh, a founding TIDAR board member and former Arizona State University professor. 3. The episode asks what TIDAR is for today and how it might become the default place for archaeological data. 4. Kintigh says TIDAR began from ASU faculty meetings that exposed a data-integration problem across Southwest archaeology datasets. 5. He describes different variable names, different coding schemes, and conclusions that did not always match the primary data. 6. The group then pursued an NSF infrastructure proposal in 1999 and later a 2004 planning grant. 7. He says the 2004 Santa Barbara conference was titled "The Promise and Challenge of Archaeological Data Integration." 8. Kintigh notes that the 2006 American Antiquity article argued for a national archaeological information infrastructure. 9. He says the article’s abstract framed "concept-oriented archaeological data integration" as a way to analyze meaningfully integrated data rather than relying on other investigators' conclusions. 10. He explains that NSF funding and Mellon Foundation funding eventually supported a serious implementation effort. 11. Kintigh says Mellon was especially focused on preserving data lost to media degradation, crashed computers, and CRM firms going out of business. 12. He notes that TIDAR expanded beyond formal coded databases to documents, images, and 2D and 3D files. 13. He says his current role is board service, while executive director Chris Nicholson manages staff, programmers, and data curators. 14. Kintigh explains that TIDAR is housed at Arizona State University but was designed as a national institution rather than an ASU-only project. 15. He says the largest recent client has been the United States Air Force, which needed legacy reports preserved across changing personnel at multiple bases. 16. He describes TIDAR’s funding now as grants, contracts, free downloads, paid uploads, paid training, and paid curation work. 17. He stresses that metadata creation is the slow part because curators must identify who did the work, where, why, and for what time period. 18. The interview is conversational and practical, with Chris Webster pushing on CRM ownership, agency rules, subscriptions, and whether TIDAR can scale. 19. Archaeologists, CRM managers, and agency staff who handle digital curation will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners wanting entertainment or a short intro to archaeology will probably skip it.

As heard by us

A grounded look at the money and metadata behind archaeological data preservation.

TIDAR comes through as the part of archaeology that starts after a project has gathered its evidence: metadata is made, files are uploaded, checks are completed, and a deposit can be reviewed before it goes public.

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Why you'd press play

You want to understand how archaeological data gets from project hands into TIDAR, and what keeps it findable after the fieldwork is over.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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