¶ Overview
BIAD is an constantly growing decentralized archaeological database. Its geographic scope is currently predominantly Europe, however it continues to expand beyond this, and will become global. BIAD is a relational MySQL database, and this wiki provides all documentation for its use and ongoing development. From the outset BIAD was conceived of as a relational database rather than a data repository. This means that, wherever possible, the different types of information contained within BIAD (e.g. published radiocarbon dates, mortuary data, isotopic data, faunal data, botanical data and material cultural data) are interlinked, allowing cross-referencing and deeper levels of data analysis. Since work on BIAD began in 2021, the COREX team and its collaborators have been very focused on building the database and linking the data contained within it. This is being done using SQL. Currently, BIAD can be accessed to input or retrieve data using command line queries, or any of a number of SQL graphical user interface clients (e.g. Sequel Pro). However, one of the end goals of BIAD is to create a web interface through which even non-experts can contribute and query with the ever-growing and ever more interconnected amounts of data that BIAD contains.
¶ Usage principles
BIAD is not open access, and a key principle to ensure constant growth is that it can only be used by data contributors. It has strict fair usage policies that are governed by a decentralized committee of data contributors.
¶ Getting started
If you would like full access to BIAD you will need to make a commitment to upload a substantial amount of new data to BIAD. Typically this involves either novel archaeological data, or more commonly aggregating data from published site reports. You can propose this to the current BIAD committee, and if successful you will be invited to become a permanent committee member and receive direct ongoing technical support for data access and input.