US Archaeology Data Science Session: National Science Foundation US-Serbia & West Balkan Data Science Workshop

This collection includes a copy of the report on US Archaeology panel summary report and follow-up comments. Several of the presentations also are included. The topics covered describe and comment on on data science issues as they relate to archaeology and the other disciplines represented at the workshop. The archaeology session report also presents suggestions regarding potential collaborative research involving US and Serbian and other West Balkan archaeologists.

The National Science Foundation US-Serbia & West Balkan Data Science Workshop was held in Belgrade, Serbia, 26-28 August 2018 (https://nsfserbia.rs/). The Data Science Workshop consisted of expert panels on data science foundations, mathematical research, big data critical infrastructure, bio-medical informatics, and archaeological research. The panelists addressed data science issues and themes as they are relevant for each of their disciplines. The US archaeology panel members addressed a variety of general data science topics as related to the particular objectives, constraints, and contributions of archaeological research from both general and specific research perspectives.

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-5 of 5)

  • Documents (5)

  • Archaeological Science, Archaeology of Science: Tools for Closing the Gap between Practice and Ideals (2018)
    DOCUMENT Full-Text Ben Marwick.

    Computational methods are increasingly being used by archaeologists and appearing in archaeological science journals. But does this make archaeology more or less scientific? On one hand, computers are anti-science because they are often used as black boxes. On the other hand, many computational tools enable unprecedented transparency of the analytical workflow. I briefly review how archaeological science has recently been defined and how the practice compares to the ideals. I then evaluate these...

  • Grand Challenges, Big Data, Fuzzy Data, and Digital Archaeology (2018)
    DOCUMENT Full-Text Adam Rabinowitz.

    As our generation and collection of quantitative digital data increase, so do our ambitions for extracting new insights and knowledge from those data. In recent years, those ambitions have manifested themselves in so-called “Grand Challenge” projects coordinated by academic institutions. These projects are often broadly interdisciplinary and attempt to address to major issues facing the world in the present and the future through the collection and integration of diverse types of scientific...

  • Grand Challenges, Big Data, Fuzzy Data, and Digital Archaeology: Integrating information about the past into the Planet Texas 2050 data platform (PowerPoint slides) (2018)
    DOCUMENT Full-Text Adam Rabinowitz.

    As our generation and collection of quantitative digital data increase, so do our ambitions for extracting new insights and knowledge from those data. In recent years, those ambitions have manifested themselves in so-called “Grand Challenge” projects coordinated by academic institutions. These projects are often broadly interdisciplinary and attempt to address to major issues facing the world in the present and the future through the collection and integration of diverse types of scientific...

  • More Data and More Computation but not Necessarily Less Theory: Assessing the Status and Near-Future Directions of Archaeology (2018)
    DOCUMENT Full-Text Timothy A. Kohler.

    Over the last decade many archaeologists (the author included) have increasingly employed computational approaches to make sense of the ever-larger amounts of relatively low-quality data available, to identify signals within the noise. Numerous applications of summed probability distributions of 14C dates and similarly sophisticated processing of tree-ring dates fall within this category, as do attempts to extract data related to specific research questions from the growing worldwide...

  • US Archaeology Data Science Workshop: Report from Workshop Track D National Science Foundation US-Serbia & West Balkan Data Science Workshop (2018)
    DOCUMENT Full-Text Francis McManamon. Carolyn Heitman. Timothy A. Kohler. Ben Marwick. Adam Rabinowitz.

    This report summarizes the substance of the US Archaeology panel presentations and provide general comments on data science issues as they relate to archaeology and the other disciplines represented at the National Science Foundation-funded US Serbia & West Balkans Data Science Workshop. We also present suggestions regarding potential collaborative research involving US and Serbian & West Balkan archaeologists. These comments and the assessment are based on our experiences during the formal...