Relational Databases for Archaeology

Relational Databases for Archaeology

by Peter J. Cobb, University of Hong Kong
version: January 2019
earlier version: December 2017

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This online guide introduces the topic of relational databases and is intended for an archaeological audience.  This was written as a textbook to introduce archaeology students to this technology within a classroom setting.  Each subsequent section covers a more advanced topic and includes practice exercises to help build skills.

Contents of this path:

  1. Why Relational Databases
  2. What is a Relational Database
  3. Software
  4. Example Archaeological Recording System
  5. Fields and Data Types in Tables
  6. The Primary Key
  7. Constraints
  8. Saving the Database
  9. Relationships
  10. Data Entry Forms
  11. Normalization
  12. Structured Query Language (SQL)