We present the ARIADNE approach towards integration of heterogeneous archaeological resources and tools into a digital research infrastructure capable of addressing the needs of cutting-edge and emerging technology-enabled archaeological research across Europe. Drawing from a comprehensive workplan, which involves conceptual and technical work regarding the planned research infrastructure and culminates in large scale trialling and transnational community engagement, we will address:

Firstly, our methodological approach, based on evidence-based analysis of actual and prospective user needs and requirements analysis, reliance on semantic technologies, and standards conformance.

Secondly, preliminary results on the specification of the ARIADNE architecture, focusing on:

• the ARIADNE interoperability framework, including the internal (API-based) and external (human) interfaces to the infrastructure and consisting of: a) Repository management, catering for metadata, metadata schemas, vocabularies, thesauri, gazetteers, and datasets, b) Metadata registry, providing a catalog of metadata schemas, with elements semantically organized according to ISO11179, c) Import service, ingesting metadata schemas and thesauri to the registry, d) Harvester, gathering metadata from archaeological collections, e) Aggregator, and f) Service Orchestrator,
• planned integrated services, including a) Ingestion, b) User interface components, c) User authentication and authorization services, d) Visualization services, and e) Long-term digital preservation services, and,
• the architecture and functional specifications of the ARIADNE metadata registry, driven by an evidence-based survey and analysis of metadata schemas, existing mappings between them and from/to CIDOC CRM, and SKOSified archaeological thesauri and vocabularies, and based on the ISO 11179 and ISO 15000-3 standards, as well as on frameworks defined by the DESIRE, ROADS and Open Metadata Registry-NSDL projects.

Finally, the innovative potential of the ARIADNE infrastructure, as substantiated by an evidence-based approach to functional specifications, a strong emphasis on interoperability, semantic technologies and standards, and support for digital preservation and active data curation by data custodians and archaeologists.