Abstract
Archaeological fieldwork is rarely considered reproducible in the sense of the ideal scientific method because of its destructive nature. But new digital technology now offers field practitioners a set of tools that can at least increase the transparency of the data-collection process as well as bring other benefits of an Open Science approach to archaeology. This article shares our perspectives, choices and experiences of piloting a set of tools (namely: ODK, Git, GitLab CE and R) which can address reproducibility of fieldwork in the form of an intensive survey project in western Turkey, and highlights the potential consequences of Open Science approaches for archaeology as a whole.
References
Alcock, S., & Cherry, J. (Eds.). (2004). Side-by-side Survey: Comparative Regional Studies in the Mediterranean World. Oxford: Oxbow.Search in Google Scholar
American Association for the Advancement of Science. (2016). Ancient History, Modern Destruction: Assessing the Status of Syria’s Tentative World Heritage Sites Using High-Resolution Satellite Imagery. https://www.aaas.org/page/ancienthistory-modern-destruction-assessing-status-syria-s-tentative-world-heritage-sites-7 (May 18, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Anokwa, Y., Hartung, C., Brunette, W., Lerer, A., & Borriello, G. (2009). Open Source Data Collection in the Developing World. IEEE Computer, 97-99. http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MC.2009.328.Search in Google Scholar
Bartling, S., & Friesike, S. (Eds.). (2014). Opening Science. The Evolving Guide on How the Internet is Changing Research, Collaboration and Scholarly Publishing. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00026-8.10.1007/978-3-319-00026-8Search in Google Scholar
Bazerman, C. (1983). Scientific Writing as a Social Act: A Review of the Literature of the Sociology of Science. In Paul V. Anderson R. John Brockmann & C. R. Miller (Eds.), New essays in technical and scientific communication: Research, theory, practice (pp. 156-184). Amityville: Baywood. Search in Google Scholar
Bevan, A. (2012). Value, Authority and the Open Society. Some Implications for Digital and Online Archaeology. In C. Bonacchi (Ed.), Archaeology and digital communication: Towards strategies of public engagement (pp. 1-14). London: Archetype.Search in Google Scholar
Bevan, A. (2015). The data deluge. Antiquity, 89, 1473-1484. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2015.102.10.15184/aqy.2015.102Search in Google Scholar
Bissell, M. (2013). Reproducibility: the Risks of the Replication Drive. Nature, 593, 333-334. https://doi.org/10.1038/503333a.10.1038/503333aSearch in Google Scholar
Bowers, J. (2011). Six steps to a Better Relationship with Your Future Self. The Political Methodologist, 18(2), 2-8.Search in Google Scholar
Chacon, S., & Straub, B. (2014). Pro Git. https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 (May 18, 2017).10.1007/978-1-4842-0076-6Search in Google Scholar
Costa, S., Beck, A., Bevan, A., & Ogden, J. (2013). Defining and advocating open data in archaeology. In G. Earl, T. Sly, A. Chrysanthi, P. Murrieta-Flores, C. Papadopoulos, I. Romanowska, & D. Wheatley (Eds.), Archaeology in the Digital Era. Papers from the 40th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA), Southampton, 26-29 March 2012 (pp. 449-456). http://dare.uva.nl/document/516092.Search in Google Scholar
Creative Commons (2013). Responses of Creative Commons to House of Lords Comments Concerning the CC BY License. https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/BIS_committee_UK_OA_Policy#Plagiarism (May 18, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Düring, B., & Glatz, C. (Eds.). (2016). Kinetic Landscapes. The Cide Archaeological Project: Surveying the Turkish Western Black Sea Region. Warsaw/Berlin: De Gruyter Open. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110444971.10.1515/9783110444971Search in Google Scholar
Ellis, S. J. (2016). Are We Ready for New (Digital) Ways to Record Archaeological Fieldwork? A Case Study from Pompeii. In E. W. Averett, J. M. Gordon, & D. B. Counts (Eds.), Mobilizing the past for a digital future: The potential of digital archaeology (pp. 51-75). Grand Forks: The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota.Search in Google Scholar
Ersoy, Y., & Koparal, E. (2008). Urla ve Seferihisar İlçeleri Yüzey Araştırması 2007 Yılı çalışmaları. Araştırma Sonuçları Toplantısı, 26(3), 73-9.Search in Google Scholar
Ersoy, Y., Tuna, N., & Koparal, E. (2010). Urla ve Seferihisar İlçeleri Yüzey Araştırması 2009 Yılı Çalışmaları. Araştırma Sonuçları Toplantısı, 28(2), 339-360.Search in Google Scholar
EU. (2016). H2020 Programme - Annotated Model Grant Agreement (Version 2.1.1). https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/amga/h2020-amga_en.pdf (May 18, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Fanelli, D. (2013). Redefine misconduct as distorted reporting. Nature, 494, 149. https://doi.org/10.1038/494149a.10.1038/494149aSearch in Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, K. (2011). Planned obsolescence: Publishing, technology, and the future of the academy. New York: New York University.10.1632/ade.150.41Search in Google Scholar
Germán, D. M., Adams, B., & Hassan, A. E. (2016). Continuously mining distributed version control systems: An empirical study of how linux uses git. Empirical Software Engineering, 21(1), 260-299. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-014-9356-2.10.1007/s10664-014-9356-2Search in Google Scholar
Gewin, V. (2013). Turning Point: Carl Boettiger. Nature, 493, 711. https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7434-711a.10.1038/nj7434-711aSearch in Google Scholar
Götz, N., & Marklund, C. (2014). The Paradox of Openness: Transparency and Participation in Nordic Cultures of Consensus. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004281196Search in Google Scholar
Harley, D., Acord, S. K., Earl-Novell, S., Lawrence, S., & King, C. J. (2010). Archaeology Case Study. In Assessing the Future Landscape of Scholarly Communication: An Exploration of Faculty Values and Needs in Seven Disciplines. (pp. 29-136). UC Berkeley: Center for Studies in Higher Education. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/15x7385g.Search in Google Scholar
HEFCE. (2015). Policy for open access in the post-2014 Research Excellence Framework: Updated July 2015. Higher Education Funding Council for England. http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/year/2014/201407/ (May 18, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Heller, L., The, R., & Bartling, S. (2014). Dynamic Publication Formats and Collaborative Authoring. In S. Bartling & S. Friesike (Eds.), Opening science (pp. 191-211). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00026-8_13.10.1007/978-3-319-00026-8_13Search in Google Scholar
Hodder, I. (1999). The Archaeological Process: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.Search in Google Scholar
Hodder, I. (2008). Evaluating Multiple Narratives: Beyond Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist Archaeologies. In J. Habu, C. Fawcett, & J. M. Matsunaga (Eds.), Evaluating multiple narratives: Beyond nationalist, colonialist, imperialist archaeologies (pp. 196-200). New York: Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-71825-5_13.10.1007/978-0-387-71825-5_13Search in Google Scholar
Huggett, J. (2015). Digital Haystacks: Open Data and the Transformation of Archaeological Knowledge. In A. T. Wilson and B. Edwards (Ed.), Open source archaeology (pp. 6-29). Warsaw/Berlin: De Gruyter Open. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110440171-003.10.1515/9783110440171-003Search in Google Scholar
Ihaka, R., & Gentleman, R. (1996). R: A Language for Data Analysis and Graphics. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 5(3), 299-314.Search in Google Scholar
Journal of Open Archaeology Data. (2017). Research integrity. http://openarchaeologydata.metajnl.com/about/researchintegrity/ (May 25, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Kansa, E. (2012). Openness and archaeology’s information ecosystem. World Archaeology, 44(4), 498-520. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2012.737575.10.1080/00438243.2012.737575Search in Google Scholar
Kansa, E. (2014). The Need to Humanize Open Science. In S. A. Moore (Ed.), Issues in open research data (pp. 31-58). London: Ubiquity Press. https://doi.org/10.5334/ban.c.10.5334/ban.cSearch in Google Scholar
Kansa, E., & Whitcher Kansa, S. (2013). We All Know That a 14 Is a Sheep: Data Publication and Professionalism in Archaeological Communication. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, 1(1), 88-97. https://doi.org/10.1353/ema.2013.0007.Search in Google Scholar
Kansa, E., Whitcher Kansa, S., & Arbuckle, B. (2014). Publishing and Pushing: Mixing Models for Communicating Research Data in Archaeology. International Journal of Digital Curation, 9.1, 57-70. https://doi.org/10.2218/ijdc.v9i1.301.10.2218/ijdc.v9i1.301Search in Google Scholar
Kelty, C. M. (2005). Free Science. In J. Feller, B. Fitzgerald, S. A. Hissam, & K. R. Lakhani (Eds.), Perspectives on free and open source software (pp. 415-430). MIT Press.Search in Google Scholar
Kelty, C. M. (2008). Two Bits: The Cultural Significance of Free Software. Durham: Duke University Press. http://twobits.net/pub/Kelty-TwoBits.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Kelty, C. M. (2014). Beyond Copyright and Technology: What Open Access can tell us about Precarity, Authority, Innovation, and Automation in the University Today. Cultural Anthropology, 29(2), 203-215. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca29.2.02.10.14506/ca29.2.02Search in Google Scholar
Knorr, K. D., & Knorr, D. W. (1978). From Scenes to Scripts: On the Relationship between Laboratory Research and Published Paper in Science. Vienna: Institute for Advanced Studies.Search in Google Scholar
Knuth, D. E. (1984). Literate Programming. The Computer Journal, 27(2), 97-111. https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/27.2.97.10.1093/comjnl/27.2.97Search in Google Scholar
Lagoze, C., Block, W. C., Williams, J., Abowd, J., & Vilhuber, L. (2013). Data management of confidential data. International Journal of Digital Curation, 8(1), 265-278.10.2218/ijdc.v8i1.259Search in Google Scholar
Lake, M. (2012). Open archaeology. World Archaeology, 44(4), 471-478. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2012.748521.10.1080/00438243.2012.748521Search in Google Scholar
Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts. Beverley Hills: Sage.Search in Google Scholar
Marwick, B. (2016). Computational Reproducibility in Archaeological Research: Basic Principles and a Case Study of Their Implementation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-015-9272-9.10.1007/s10816-015-9272-9Search in Google Scholar
Masic, I. (2012). Plagiarism in scientific publishing. Acta Informatica Medica, 20(4), 208-213. https://doi.org/10.5455/aim.2012.20.208-213.10.5455/aim.2012.20.208-213Search in Google Scholar
Matthews, R., & Glatz, C. (Eds.). (2009). At Empires’ Edge. Project Paphlagonia Regional Survey in North-Central Turkey. London: British Institute at Ankara.Search in Google Scholar
Morin, A., Urban, J., Adams, P. D., Foster, I., Sali, A., Baker, D., & Sliz, P. (2012). Shining Light into Black Boxes. Science, 336(6078), 159-160. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1218263.10.1126/science.1218263Search in Google Scholar
Nielsen, M. (2011). An informal definition of openscience. http://www.openscience.org/blog/?p=454 (May 18, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Nuzzo, R. (2015). How scientists fool themselves - and how they can stop. Nature, 526, 182-185. https://doi.org/10.1038/526182a.10.1038/526182aSearch in Google Scholar
Open Definition. (2016). Conformant license (version 2.1). http://opendefinition.org/licenses/ (May 18, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2017). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org (May 18, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Schloen, D. (2001). Archaeological Data Models and Web Publication Using XML. Computers and the Humanities, 35(2), 123-152. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30204847.10.1023/A:1002471112790Search in Google Scholar
Schloen, D., & Schloen, S. (2014). Beyond Gutenberg: Transcending the Document Paradigm in Digital Humanities. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 8(4). http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/8/4/000196/000196.html.Search in Google Scholar
Smith, J. (2013). Adapting Git for simple data. https://theodi.org/blog/adapting-git-simple-data (May 14, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Strupler, N. (2016). Archaeology as Community Enterprise. In S. Campana, R. Scopigno, G. Carpentiero, & M. Cirillo (Eds.), CAA2015 keep the revolution going, proceedings of the 43 rd annual conference on computer applications and quantitative methods in archaeology (Vol. 1, pp. 1015-1018).Search in Google Scholar
The Free Software Foundation. (2016). Various Licenses and Comments about Them. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html (May 18, 2017).Search in Google Scholar
Vinck, D., & Clivaz, C. (2014). The Humanities Unbound. Knowledge and Culture Reinvented Outside the Book. Revue d’anthropologie des connaissances, 8(4), a-w. https://doi.org/10.3917/rac.025.0682.10.3917/rac.025.0682Search in Google Scholar
Wallis, J., Rolando, E., & Borgman, C. (2013). If We Share Data, Will Anyone Use Them? Data Sharing and Reuse in the Long Tail of Science and Technology. PLoS ONE, 8(7), e67332. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0067332.10.1371/journal.pone.0067332Search in Google Scholar
Wallrodt, J. (2016). Why Paperless: Technology and Changes in Archaeological Practice, 1996-2016. In E. W. Averett, J. M. Gordon, & D. B. Counts (Eds.), Mobilizing the past for a digital future: The potential of digital archaeology (pp. 33-50). Grand Forks: The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota.Search in Google Scholar
Xie, Y. (2015). Dynamic Documents with R and knitr (2nd ed.). Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman; Hall/CRC.Search in Google Scholar
Xie, Y. (2016). Knitr: A General-Purpose Package for Dynamic Report Generation in R (R package version 1.12). http://yihui.name/knitr/.Search in Google Scholar
© 2017
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.