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The MAPPA Open Data (MOD) archaeological repository (www.mappaproject.org/mod) stores and considers openly accessible all kind of archaeological data from raw data to linked open data produced during the research process, including metadata, and it's connected with the Journal of Open Archaeological Data for good quality data. Our infrastructure is hosted on GNU/Linux of the Centro Interdipartimentale di Servizi Informatici per l'Area Umanistica (CISIAU) of University of Pisa, is designed on an Open Source LAMP technological platform using an Apache HTTP Server, PHP 5.x scripting language and MySQL Open Source relational database. Currently, as our main purpose was to persuade the archaeological community of the importance of open data, we use a basic policy for data management: we acquire raw data from archaeologists, and we validate the data from a legal point of view. Various types of records are published on the MOD which refer to archaeological interventions: preliminary reports, reports, context lists, context records, lists of finds, quantification records, period tables, stratigraphic diagrams, lists of activities, masonry contexts, masonry context records, rapid archiving records, excavation diaries, letters and communications, maps, sections, drawn records and photographs. Consequently, we checked the legitimacy of the activities carried out in the MOD with the records (uploading and dissemination to the public via the Internet) in the light of the following regulations: – Lawno.633of22April1941,"Protectionofcopyrightandrightsrelatedtoitsexercise"(LdA); – Legislative Decree no. 42 of 22 January 2004, "Code of the cultural and landscape heritage, pursuant to article 10 of Law no. 137 of 6 July 2002" (CBC); – Legislative Decree no. 196 of 30 June 2003, "Personal data protection code" (Privacy Code); – LegislativeDecreeno.30of10February2005,"Industrialpropertycode,inaccordancewith article 15 of Law no. 273 of 12 December 2002" (CPI). We published a detailed guide in which are explained the procedures that must be followed to prepare and provide the material to be published. In compliance with the laws, published documents are not expected to contain the personal data of natural persons who have not previously agreed to their publication, whether they are authors or third parties mentioned inside the records. Specific disclaimers have been prepared and can be downloaded to help authors correctly collect the authorisations needed to put their material online. Once validated the data, we embed metadata to each dataset describing all the information regarding the dataset itself, we stored the data in our repository, providing protection. We use a metadata schema for each dataset describing all the information regarding the dataset itself: the structure and format of the digital data, the history of the archaeological investigation, the sources used, the method and the relationship with the physical data. The schema is composed partly from Dublin Core and partly from ISO 19115 metadata core for the geographical section. We don't describe the quality of data, because we firmly believe that the quality of research data must be responsibility of researchers in a sort of open peer review method.

Pottery is of fundamental importance for understanding archaeological contexts, facilitating the understanding of production, trade flows, and social interactions. Pottery characterisation and the classification of ceramics is still a manual process, reliant on analogue catalogues created by specialists, held in archives and libraries. The ArchAIDE project worked to streamline, optimise and economise the mundane aspects of these processes, using the latest automatic image recognition technology, while retaining key decision points necessary to create trusted results. Specifically, ArchAIDE worked to support classification and interpretation work (during both fieldwork and post-excavation analysis) with an innovative app for tablets and smartphones. This article summarises the work of this three-year project, funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement N.693548, with a consortium of partners representing both the academic and industry-led ICT (Information and Communications Technology) domains, and the academic and development-led archaeology domains. The collaborative work of the archaeological and technical partners created a pipeline where potsherds are photographed, their characteristics compared against a trained neural network, and the results returned with suggested matches from a comparative collection with typical pottery types and characteristics. Once the correct type is identified, all relevant information for that type is linked to the new sherd and stored within a database that can be shared online. ArchAIDE integrated a variety of novel and best-practice approaches, both in the creation of the app, and the communication of the project to a range of stakeholders.