AR01042_WODAN_Final_Report_10.pdf - The Heritage Council

1 Introduction
1.1 Knowledge context.
The WODAN database has been a three year programme funded by the Heritage Council through
its INSTAR grant scheme.
During the Celtic Tiger in Ireland, the level of developments (residential and infrastructural) rose
to unprecedented levels. Concurrently, the amount of commercial archaeology rose equally
steeply. This led to a similar vast increase in the level of environmental data generated from
excavations. The environmental data takes on many forms such as pollen, coleopteran, plant
remains, wood and charcoal. One of the most commonly found ecofat on Irish archaeological
sites is charcoal. It will be found in most contexts, whereas the preservation of waterlogged wood,
plant remains, pollen and beetle remains are more dependant on the soil conditions.
In 2007, seeing this volume of data being produced, wood and charcoal specialists came together
in Ireland to form the Irish Wood Anatomists Association (IWAA). The IWAA realized the need
for communication, dissemination and collaboration of their results to each other and to the
public at large. One of issues raised during the meetings was the archive of environmental work.
Each of the specialists had different methods to store their results. Some used paper copies; some
excel sheets, some databases (access). The IWAA freely shared information between members
which facilitated easy comparison of results form similar site types and periods. It was felt that
this was needed to be completed in a more standardized format. The need for a digital archive
was clear, how, when and where were the unanswered questions.
The possibility of the Discovery Programme building an environmental database was raised, but
due to funding it was not possible. In 2008, Dr. Ingelise Stuijts applied for funding to build a
database to hold wood and charcoal information through a new grant scheme (INSTAR) funded
by the Heritage Council.
7