Archaeology Data Service

The Archaeology Data Service supports research, learning and teaching with freely available, high quality and dependable digital resources. It does this by preserving digital data in the long term, and by promoting and disseminating a broad range of data in archaeology. The ADS promotes good practice in the use of digital data in archaeology, it provides technical advice to the research community, and supports the deployment of digital technologies.

The aim of the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is to collect, describe, catalogue, preserve, and provide user support for digital resources that are created as a product of archaeological research. The ADS also has a responsibility for promoting standards and guidelines for best practice in the creation, description, preservation and use of archaeological information. For those classes of archaeological data where there are existing archival bodies the role of the ADS will be to collaborate with the appropriate national and local agencies to promote greater use of existing services.