Extending Darwin Core to incorporate data about material condition and absolute deep time

By

Brenskelle, Laura
Wieczorek, John
Guralnick, Robert
Emery, Kitty
Lefebvre, Michelle

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2017-8-9

Original Publication

Metabarcoding and metagenomics

Volume

1

Pages

1--2

Subjects

absolute dates , Chronology , Darwin Core , discoverability , Paleontology , Standards , zooarchaeology

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers 2017-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/tdwgproceedings.1.20126

 

Abstract

As part of efforts to mobilize zooarchaeological collections data, there is a strong need for new terms that can extend the Darwin Core standard in order to describe material condition, preparation history, and chronology. These data are important for understanding the full context of specimens from an array of natural and cultural heritage disciplines, especially those involving deep time, such as paleontology and zooarchaeology. These disciplines offer pre- and early Anthropocene biodiversity baselines to recognize and understand the deep history of human-environment interactions and use this information for research and conservation. They also provide an invaluable perspective about climate change in the past, thus providing insight into future climate change and impacts on ecology and biodiversity.<br> We propose two new extensions: one for chronology, and one for material condition. While Darwin Core does currently accommodate data about lithostratigraphy, the chronology extension will allow for sharing of absolute dates and dating protocols. Additionally, the material condition extension will provide proper means for sharing data that, thus far, have been lumped under the Darwin Core term ‘preparations’, which limits their discoverability to users. This includes data about skeletal elements, taphonomy, and preparation history. Here we present these two extensions to Darwin Core and open the discussion about improving the proposed terms and definitions in the extensions we developed.