A significant number of archaeology’s Grand Challenges (Kintigh et al. 2014) can only be addressed through access to large amounts of data from multiple research fields, and advanced tools for aggregating, synthesizing and analyzing them. Archaeological research has seen significant developments in the use of databases and database tools since first adopting them in the late 1960s (Lock 2003). The often small scale of archaeological budgets, and the paucity of long-term funding, has meant that cheaper solutions have most often been used. These have ranged from mainstream database management systems through university site licenses and project specific purchases, to independently coded solutions and more recent open source alternatives. The relatively unusual nature and complexity of archaeological science (see Lidén 2017) data has meant that custom database designs have been the norm. The vast majority of these databases have been built to serve single purposes: from simple sample processing archives, to more complete excavation databases or multi-site macrofossil databases. User interfaces, if present, usually reflect these aims rather than provide for wider audiences. Such databases are an extremely important part of how science is now conducted, and, as explained in this chapter, there are considerable advantages to upscaling them towards becoming components in research infrastructure.