Period Assertion as Nanopublication: The PeriodO Period Gazetteer

The PeriodO period gazetteer collects definitions of time periods made by archaeologists and other historical scholars. In constructing the gazetteer, we sought to make period definitions parsable and comparable by computers while also retaining the broader scholarly context in which they were conceived. Our approach resulted in a dataset of period definitions and their provenances that resemble what data scientists working in the e-science domain have dubbed “nanopublications.” In this paper we describe the origin and goals of nanopublications, provide an overview of the design and implementation of a database of period definitions, and highlight the similarities and differences between the two.