Changing Directions – Introducing TOMB

As Katy mentioned in our recent Digital Archaeology Institute blog post, she and I have decided to take our project in a different direction. We originally proposed a project called ossuaryKB, a mortuary method knowledge base. However, as we’ve been working toward the project over the last semester, we hit quite a few roadblocks. After sitting down recently we realized that ossurayKB wasn’t really the project we had a passion for. What we really wanted to make was a tool that was more orientated towards the public learning about mortuary archaeology. So we are proud to announce our new project… TOMB: The Online Map of Bioarchaeology.

TOMB will center around an interactive map featuring case studies and exemplars from mortuary archaeology and bioarchaeological studies. The site will be a space for students and the public to learn more about this field, and still serve as a place for anthropologists to share their research and provide updates. For more details on the project description, please see Katy’s blog post.

This refocusing of the project means that my goals for CHI will also change. Previously I’d discussed the challenges surrounding building a SQL database for ossuaryKB. TOMB will require a different set of technical resources. Over the next three months, I will build the functional structure of the site using a combination of Bootstrap and Leaflet . Specifically, I will be using the open web mapping application template developed by Bryan McBride called bootleaf.

The bootleaf template is available on Github (https://github.com/bmcbride/bootleaf), and well commented. Although I’ve created a website centered around mapping before using bootstrap (Mortuary Mapping), I used CartoDB to make the maps. This will be my first time using leaflet. Thankfully my project partner Katy used bootleaf to create IELDRAN, and have excellent comments on her use of bootleaf on her Github repository(https://github.com/bonesdontlie/Commented-ieldran).

We’re both very excited about the potential TOMB creates, and I look forward to sharing my bootleaf learning experience.


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