Haus der Archäologien | Mining Archaeology
The Haus der Archäologien is a joint centre for the natural science and cultural studies activities of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum. This is where the research areas of archaeometallurgy and mining archaeology meet with the Institute of Archaeological Studies. The shared research and science infrastructures here enable students , doctoral students, postdocs, research assistants and teaching staff to engage in interdisciplinary, practice-oriented learning teaching and research activities.
The move to a common building in 2017 represented the spatial amalgamation of a partnership that has existed between the University and the Leibniz Research Museum for decades already. The Ruhr-Universität Bochum's Center for Mediterranean Studies is the facility’s third “resident”.
The building also accommodates other research infrastructures: the mining archaeology Library which is open to users, and the mining archaeology collections of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Leibniz Research Museum for Geo-resources. Other facilities used by teaching staff and researchers alike include the digital Microscopy Laboratory for Archaeometallurgy and Archaeometry, as well as a Geographical Information Systems Laboratory.
The Archaeometallurgy, Research Laboratory Materials Science and Mining Archaeology departments of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum are currently handling a data pool comprising several terabytes of digital data, as well as numerous analog documents gathered from about 100 research projects conducted since the 1970s. This is why the Haus der Archäologien has started work on developing a joint “Open Science” strategy, aimed at creating greater public awareness for areas such as “historical raw material extraction processes”, archaeometry and experimental archaeology.
Previously stored in a decentralised array of databases and data systems, the objective now is to amalgamate this pool of digital and analog data into one specialist information system, within which the data inventory will be structured into four research areas relating to the mining of raw materials conducted by historical cultures. Together with colleagues from the Institute of Archaeological Studies, the research department is an active member of the National Research Infrastructure Consortium engaged in the “NFDI4Objects” Project, in which the research departments of the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum are working together with the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz on a concrete application for the focus area of Analytics .
The free availability of data creates transparency, while simultaneously boosting the quality of research work and therebythe level of trust placed in science. This means that the Open Science programme is also aimed at target groups not involved in science, by opening up the results, methods and processes of scientific work in a generally understandable way, and making these available as a subject for dialogue.
Haus der Archäologien
Am Bergbaumuseum 31
44791 Bochum
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Institute of Archaeological Studies
Center for Mediterranean Studies