We discuss the research methodology relating to a recent project undertaken at Bangor University which investigated the settlements of northwest Wales from the Late Bronze Age through to the Early Medieval period. The research for this project required the curation, manipulation and enhancement of a substantial amount of archaeological data from a variety of sources, including published and unpublished excavation and survey reports, the Historic Environment Record at Gwynedd Archaeological Trust, and previous project databases such as George Smith's (GAT) Cadw-funded databases on the roundhouse settlements and hillforts of northwest Wales.
Collaboration with Gwynedd Archaeological Trust on this project enabled the structure of the database to be designed so that it was compatible with the HER. This enabled information from the HER database to be easily transferred to the database duting data collection, but also enabled enhanced data to be transferred back to the HER following completion of the project. We will discuss the impact generated from this specific research methodology and any lessens learned in the process.