1 Jul 2024 12,000-year-old Aboriginal sticks may be evidence of the oldest known culturally transmitted ritual in the world by Kristina Killgrove on Live Science “The study sets a high bar for investigating ancient ritual practice, Ben Marwick, an archaeologist at the University of Washington who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. “There are older examples of more generic rituals, such as burial of the dead,” Marwick said, “but this one is special because it is a specific ritual practice that has continued from time immemorial until recently.” Commenting on David et al. (2024) Nature Human Behaviour https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01912-w

3 May 2024 How reproducibility is gaining first-class status in scientific research by Milly Sell on Elsevier Connect for the Journal of Archaeological Science “Ensuring research is reproducible is crucial to instilling confidence in research. Prof Ben Marwick, Associate Editor of the Journal of Archaeological Science, talks about recent initiatives that are encouraging software and data sharing.” This is an interview on the occasion of my appointment as inaugural Associate Editor for Reproducibility at JAS.

3 Nov 2023 On an island in Southeast Asia, early humans coped with climate change by tailoring their technology by Amy McDermott for PNAS Journal Club “Ben Marwick, an archaeologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, says these authors did ‘a fantastic job of analyzing these artifacts and putting them in context relevant to Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the world.’ He notes that in this particular region of Island Southeast Asia, many of the stone artifacts, like those the researchers inspected, are small, and not particularly showy pieces that haven’t attracted as much archaeological interest as the spectacular hand axes and blades found in other parts of the world, including Europe and Africa. In this region of Southeast Asia in particular, archaeologists had imagined that people used such stone tools ‘once or twice’ and then threw them away, Marwick says. But by taking a closer look at these small pieces, ’these authors interpret the stone artifact technology as people making decisions to extend the life of their tools,’ he notes. ‘At some periods, the makers of these tools do extend [the tools’] useful life, whereas at other times they don’t,’ he explains.” Commenting on Clarkson et al. (2023) Quaternary Science Reviews https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108340

19 May 2023 2023 Outstanding Undergraduate Research Mentor Award I was one of the recipients of this award for 2023, which resulted from this student nomination: “Professor Marwick is incredibly patient, encouraging, and supportive. He listens to understand and has really allowed me to take the lead on my project while guiding and directing. He is never harsh or critical but provides positive feedback and constructive criticism. He teaches without condescension, making his students feel capable and never belittling even when we are slow or have ridiculous questions.” — Brieana Smith // Senior // Sociology, Anthropology

1 May 2023 The sleight-of-hand trick that can simplify scientific computing. by Jeffrey M. Perkel, published in Nature. “It can be very frustrating, tracing down the differences between outputs across different computers,” says Ben Marwick, an archaeologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Some research projects take years to complete, he notes. And although Marwick prefers the newest libraries, his colleagues don’t always upgrade at the same pace. Renv ensures that he and his collaborators always run their project codes in the same way. The resulting environment-description file can be version-controlled and shared on GitHub. Collaborators can recreate the environment using the command renv::restore().

9 June 2022 Times Radio interview Radio interview by Henry Bonsu for Times Radio, starting at 1:38. A live radio Q&A on a recently published paper on backed artefact and social connectedness during the Pleistocene in Africa (Way, A.M., et al 2022 Sci Rep https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-12677-5).

28 Feb 2022 Cut the tyranny of copy-and-paste with these coding tools. by Jeffrey M. Perkel, published in Nature. “Ben Marwick, an archaeologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, has written “around a dozen” papers using R Markdown. He says that the workflow dovetails with his broader interest in open science and scientific transparency. Data science, he says, involves multiple “very small decisions” — data cleaning and filtering steps, for instance, which are crucially important, but difficult to document. And journal page limits preclude exposition. But by blending code, data and text in a single document, researchers can show just how their results were generated. “It’s an extremely efficient way to communicate as much of the process as we can,” Marwick says. … “The inline code just completely allows you to sleep well at night,” Marwick says.” See also the example project we prepared to accompany this article: https://github.com/jperkel/computed_manuscript.

1 Sept 2021 Over 6,300 artifacts excavated at Yen Bai’s archaeological site in Vietnam+. A brief summary of our 2015 archaeological excavations in Mau A in Yen Bai Province, Vietnam. “If the hypothesis that this is the area of prehistoric people can be proven, this will be very important information, marking a big change in the production organisation and division of labour of prehistoric people, according to Dr. Ben Marwick”

10 Dec 2020 Tea & Trowels: Ep. 38 Open science in archaeology is important for decolonizing archaeology interview by Emily Jane Murray for the Florida Public Archaeology Network - Northeast Region “It’s tea time! Join us as Emily Jane chats locally crafted Japanese gardening tools, open science and epic archaeology fails caught on film with Dr. Ben Marwick of the University of Washington. #TeaAndTrowels”

30 Nov 2020 UW launches new interdisciplinary data science minor by Julia Park, in The Daily of the University of Washington “Ben Marwick, associate professor of archaeology and director of the minor, said the program is unique because it provides training in both “data skills,” such as programming languages or machine learning, and “data studies,” which examine the decisions, ethics, and implications surrounding data in the real world. … Graduates of the program “will go out into the workplace and they’ll be ready to talk in a really sensitive, meaningful way when some engineer is saying, ‘Oh, we just can do this and that with the data and then we’ll be great,’” Marwick said. “And then our graduate will say, ‘Well, let’s just think about this for a minute: Who’s going to benefit, who’s going to suffer? Is this the right thing to do, and what is the impact on the community of doing this or that?’”

30 Nov 2020 Conversations in Human Evolution: Volume 1 edited by Lucy Timbrell, published by Archaeopress ‘Conversations in Human Evolution is an ongoing science communication initiative seeking to explore the breadth and interdisciplinarity of human evolution studies. This volume reports twenty interviews (referred to as ‘conversations’ as they are informal in style) with scholars at the forefront of human evolution research, covering the broad scientific themes of quaternary and archaeological science, Palaeolithic archaeology, biological anthropology and palaeoanthropology, primatology and evolutionary anthropology and evolutionary genetics. This project features academics at various different stages in their careers and from all over the world; in this volume alone, researchers are based at institutions in seven different countries (namely the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States of America, Germany, Denmark, India, and China), covering four continents.’ Includes an interview with Ben Marwick, previously published online at Lucy’s Conversations in Human Evolution project.

26 Nov 2020 Looking back on ARCHON Day 2020 by Ela Altay for ARCHON Research School of Archaeology (Netherlands) “The ARCHON Day 2020 took place on 30 October 2020 as an online event. Students and professional researchers virtually came together to talk about this year’s central topic: ‘Advancing access to Research’… The poster session was followed by a keynote lecture, titled ‘Open access, open data and open methods – three steps to transparency that are redefining archaeological science’ given by Ben Marwick. He gave insight in the benefits and importance of these methods, which included both private and public ones. Needless to say, these benefits required individual effort. Marwick defined all three to be ‘free, immediate and online’.”

18 Nov 2020 UW introduces new minor in data science by Jackson Holtz for UW News “‘The goal is to combine some of the technical skills that relate to the new developments of generating and analyzing large amounts of data. And then giving students the context and the critical thinking skills to do something meaningful with that,’ said Ben Marwick, an associate professor of archaeology and director of the new data science minor. ‘Data science education must distinguish itself by closely coupling the teaching of methods, tools, applications and meta-examination of data science practice,’ Marwick said.”

1 October 2020 Guest Editorial by Paromita Bose, Sutonuka Bhattacharya, Prachi Joshi, Mokshada Salunke, and Chintan Thakar, published in Antiquity “As well as research presentations, we also scheduled a training session for the participants of the conference. The programming language R is now widely used for data analysis in the social and natural sciences, including archaeology. In India, however, at least in the context of archaeological analysis, the use of R is unknown. As part of the conference, we therefore held an ‘Introduction to R in archaeology’ workshop, organised in collaboration with the Sharma Centre. The workshop was led by Dr Ben Marwick of the University of Washington. As the first R training session for archaeologists to be held in India, the workshop was literally aimed at taking data analysis in Indian archaeology into the future. The interactive session included both theoretical and ‘hands-on’ training to develop conceptual and practical software skills, and there were many questions and much lively discussion. With this new experience of using R, it is now up to us as individual researchers to develop and make use of these skills in our future work.”

21 July 2020 Conversations with: Professor Ben Marwick by Lucy Timbrell, published in Conversations in Human Evolution “I am delighted to introduce today Professor Ben Marwick, an archaeologist from the University of Washington! Specifically, Ben‘s research interests are focussed within Southeast Asian and Australian archaeology, such as hominin dispersals, forager technologies and ecology. He also is interested in how archaeology engages with local and online communities, in addition to popular culture, as well as techniques and methods for reproducible research and open science.”

21 Jan 2020 Ancient aboriginal aquaculture system older than Stonehenge uncovered by Australia wildfires by Kim Bellware, published in The Washington Post and the Smithsonian Magazine by Theresa Machemer “You don’t really see it anywhere else in Australia until European agriculture,” Ben Marwick, an associate professor of archaeology for the University of Washington, told The Washington Post. “It shows us they had a high level of technical skill, understanding of physics and of the natural environment.” … “It was known about for a long time but ignored,” Marwick said. “It ran counter to prevailing narrative about the aboriginal people and didn’t fit the stereotype that the Europeans were more sophisticated.” Marwick, the professor, grew up in Australia and said Budj Bim is “one of the jewels of the crown of Australian archaeology.” … “We know the population was twice the size of what we originally thought, but we might have to size up from that estimate again,” he said. “There’s a stereotype of an unchanging land and an unchanging people, but this shows this really isn’t the case; they appear to have continually modified the system,” Marwick said. “It’s a nice case study for the change in attitude toward aboriginal culture and how undervalued it is, especially by white Australians.”

5 Nov 2019 Make code accessible with these cloud services by Jeffrey M. Perkel, published in Nature. “Marwick, an archaeologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, had become proficient in migrating Docker configuration files (‘Dockerfiles’) from one project to the next, making minor tweaks and getting them to work. Colleagues in Germany invited him to teach their students how to follow suit. But because every student had a slightly different set of hardware and software installed, each one required a customized configuration. The demo “was a complete disaster”, Marwick says.”

29 Aug 2019 Crowdsourced archaeology shows how humans have influenced Earth for thousands of years by Kim Eckart, published in UW News. “There are archaeologists working all over the world, but they aggregate data differently, and it can be difficult to find larger patterns,” said co-author Ben Marwick, an associate professor of anthropology at the UW. “By asking archaeologists a series of questions rather than combining datasets, we’ve created a brilliant workaround — essentially, what were people doing, and how much, in different parts of the world? … A global dataset like this invites lots of interesting follow-up investigations that have not been possible before now. With all our data openly available, anyone anywhere can freely dig in and test out new ideas on a global scale”, Marwick said.

18 Jun 2019 A “petting zoo for code” makes studies easier to reproduce: A new tool helps users to compose, compute and publish reproducible articles. by Jeffrey M. Perkel, published in Nature Index. “The result, says Ben Marwick, an archeologist and reproducibility advocate at the University of Washington in Seattle, who has used Code Ocean to publish his computing environments, is like a computational “petting zoo” – a platform for making code and data available to the scientific community for interactive exploration, validation and modification.”

25 May 2019. OPP Interviews: Jade d’Alpoim Guedes and Ben Marwick, by Emerson Del Ponte and Adam Sparks for the Open Plant Pathology (OPP) Blog. “My awareness of the importance of doing reproducible research came pretty late – well after I’d finished my PhD and started working as a professor. I needed some time to acquire the necessary basic skills, and to build up the courage to work differently from my peers and senior colleagues, and to be able to tell them that there might be better ways to do research. Most of my reproducible practices are self-taught by adopting practices I’ve observed in elsewhere, such as ecology and biology.”

17 April 2019. Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Research, from the UW Center for Teaching and Learning. Lead by Professor Ian Schnee (Philosophy), our poster “Active Enough? Assessing the Impact of Screens in Active-Learning Classrooms” won one of three awards at the 15th Annual Teaching & Learning Symposium. “The judges found the poster’s research cogent, valuable across classroom settings and disciplines. They also noted the poster’s stellar visual communication. The presentation and discussion of the poster at the Symposium they scored especially high.”

5 Mar 2019 EP015 Reproducible Research in Archaeology with rrtools Podcast interview by David Brassard and Patrick Diehl for Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) for Science “For episode 15, we interview the Associate Professor of Archaeology Ben Marwick. We start our discussion with an overview of some FLOSS tools he uses and how much FLOSS are used in archaeology. He shares with us his experience in regard to working completely in the open with GitHub and his hope that open science will become the norm in the future. We also discuss about rrtools and his propositions on how to greatly improve the reproducibility of science. As a closing though he shares with us his arguments why early career researchers should invest time to learn and transition to FLOSS tools.”

19 Nov 2018 Reinventing the Wheel? Early Humans Invented Prehistoric ‘Swiss Army Knife’ Everywhere They Lived by Ruth Schuster, published in Haaretz. ‘Levallois (pronounced Le-val-wa) takes brains and finesse. This type of implement – “the Swiss Army knife of prehistoric tools,” Marwick calls them – required planning.’… ‘“It seems plausible because we have a well documented case in Armenia,” notes Marwick, who agrees that, theoretically, Homo erectus could have been the ancient inventor. “But we would need to see the artifacts combined with some hominin bones, fossils, before we can be confident. Until then, all we can do is speculate,” he tells Haaretz.’… ‘At least in Morocco, it was apparently being used by some kind of Homo sapiens, since we see the tools and human bones together at Jebel Irhoud, Marwick tells Haaretz. “Later, they are also used by Neanderthals in Europe.”’ … ‘But the discovery of Levallois technology in so many places, from so many times, leads to thoughts that it originated independently in more than one spot, which is the point of the new paper. “The evidence is accumulating in support of that scenario,” says Marwick.’ … ‘“East Asia is an exciting and challenging area to study human evolution. So much of the world’s current population live there, but we know so little about how they got there,” he says. “Compared to Africa and Europe, we have not had as much time or resources to find evidence in Asia. But we’re catching up, because the evidence is increasingly showing that this region is an important and unique part of the story of how we became human.”’

19 Nov 2018 The ‘Swiss Army knife of prehistoric tools’ found in Asia, independent of ancient African or European influence by Kim Eckart for UW News “It used to be thought that Levallois cores came to China relatively recently with modern humans,” said Ben Marwick, UW associate professor of anthropology and one of the paper’s corresponding authors. “Our work reveals the complexity and adaptability of people there that is equivalent to elsewhere in the world. It shows the diversity of the human experience.”

26 Oct 2018 The oldest weapons in North America offer a new view of prehistoric tech by By Neel V. Patel for Popular Science. “I think they’ve done an amazing job in dating the deposits in the artifacts” and providing a “secure chronology,” says Ben Marwick, an archeologist based at the University of Washington who was not involved with the study. “They’ve invested a lot of effort and it’s paid off very well, and I really think that’s a strength of the study.” That being said, Marwick also points out the findings have their limits. “The critical artifacts [the authors] based their findings on are small in number. It leaves an unanswered question of whether this is a real pattern of an early technology we don’t know much about, or if it’s just a one-off sort of thing, and maybe there’s just a small number of people deciding to make these sorts of artifacts one afternoon.” Marwick also notes there’s not a very robust description of the actual clay deposits in the paper, and that pictures seemed to show some vertical cracks in the layers. “It looks like there might be some potential for some of these artifacts to move through the cracks. It’s possible some of the artifacts might have moved down,” and are not as old as we might really believe. Marwick has conducted work in similar archeological sites in Australia, where he and his team have had to anticipate those sorts of possibilities and account for them through microscopic analysis and other testing. “My sense is that that work hasn’t been done here, and I’d look forward to seeing some of that before I get too excited about some of the claims.” Lastly, while Marwick says it’s possible the points originate from a separate group of migrants, he’s hesitant to put too much stock in that interpretation. “We know that one group can make many different kinds of artifacts. It’s not always really the case that different kinds of artifacts mean different kinds of cultural groups.” There are only a handful of sites within North America that scientists are able to work with, so it’s difficult to come up with conclusions that will apply wholesale to the history of early human migrants in North America. He’s hopeful more research can prove whether or not these kinds of findings are part of a pattern or just a kind of random peculiarity in the field of anthropology. Nevertheless, Marwick is encouraged by the overall implication of the findings that early technologies in the Americas are more diverse than we previously thought. “It’s a very important part of this new paper,” he says.

6 Sept 2018 Open framework tackles backwards science. by Jeffrey M. Perkel, published in Nature Index. “Marwick says [the] ability to integrate multiple online systems is one of the “strong attractions” of the OSF. Another, he says, is its integrated preprint server. OSF preprints can be associated with projects, providing an easy way to migrate back and forth between a project’s data and the resulting manuscripts.”

22 Aug 2018 A toolkit for data transparency takes shape: A simple software toolset can help to ease the pain of reproducing computational analyses. by Jeffrey M. Perkel, published in Nature 560, 513-515. “Marwick says ‘…tantalizing connections lie abandoned because they’re impossible to explore. It’s like we’re a roomful of hungry people handing around tins of canned food, and nobody has a can opener. And then we’re asking each other, why doesn’t anyone eat anything?’”

9 Apr 2018 A finger bone from an unexpected place and time upends the story of human migration out of Africa by Karen Kaplan in the Los Angeles Times “What makes the Al Wusta find especially important is that it is a direct date on a bone,” [Ben] said. “Most of the other evidence that support this pre-65,000 year idea have not been able to directly date human bones.” However, he said, he wished that the authors had been more open about sharing their raw data and methods, to allow other members of the archaeological and anthropological community to verify their discovery. “It would be ideal to see some independent validation of the ages by another lab, unrelated to these authors, dating samples from the bone,” Marwick said. “That would help to confirm that the result is reproducible, which is the cornerstone of any scientific claim.”

8 Mar 2018 Solving the mysteries of prehistoric blades: Ancient weapons are found to have specific functions in hunting, by Cristen Jansson in the The Daily, Ben Marwick, an associate professor of anthropology at the UW who was not involved in the study, says that the archaeologists based their conclusions about the origins of these blades purely on logic. “A bone is a round, thin object, and if you sharpen it, you can penetrate very deeply into something,” Marwick said. “The stone point will have a different property because it’s wide and flat and so it can tear the flesh more, and the composite tool [microblade] is kind of jagged and bulky.” Marwick said this paper proves “these different types of tool really have these properties when hunting… Although [the] focus was just on people in Alaska… I think it‘s relevance can go far beyond that,” Marwick said. “In Australia, for example, we also find bone points and composite tools and stone artifacts there, so it helps us to try to understand the role of those tools in people’s toolkits. It can [also] be relevant to understanding the first appearance of these tools in the whole history of human evolution… Using a composite tool is much less risky, because if you [miss the animal]or something bad happens, you can repair it, but if you just have a single stone point, the risk [of irreparable damage] is quite high,” Marwick said.

6 Dec 2017 Making YOUR Code Reproducible: Tips and Tricks, by Chris Grieves in the Methods.blog, the official blog of the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. “When we were putting together the British Ecological Society’s Guide to Reproducible Code we asked the community to send us their advice on how to make code reproducible. We got a lot of excellent responses and we tried to fit as many as we could into the Guide. Unfortunately, we ran out of space and there were a few that we couldn’t include. Luckily, we have a blog where we can post all of those tips and tricks so that you don’t miss out.” The blog post features five quotations from me relating to the British Ecological Society’s Guide to Reproducible Code.

26 Oct 2017 How I Work Open: Ben Marwick by Liz Bedford, a blog post for the Scholarly Communication & Publishing Department at the University of Washington Libraries “While part of my archaeology work consists of traditional activities like excavation, fieldwork, and surveying, another is part is computer-based. Much of my effort is focused on making the computational work done in the lab open and transparent, because in the field what we’re doing is automatically open.”

19 July 2017 Artifacts suggest humans arrived in Australia earlier than thought by Kim Eckart for UW News “Now, a team of researchers, including a faculty member and seven students from the University of Washington, has found and dated artifacts in northern Australia that indicate humans arrived there about 65,000 years ago — more than 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. A paper published July 20 in the journal Nature describes dating techniques and artifact finds at Madjedbebe, a longtime site of archaeological research, that could inform other theories about the emergence of early humans and their coexistence with wildlife on the Australian continent.”

25 May 2017 UW anthropologist: Why researchers should share computer code by Kim Eckart for UW News “Making the programs behind the research accessible allows other scientists to test the code and reproduce the computations in an experiment — in other words, to reproduce results and solidify findings. It’s the “how the sausage is made” part of research, Marwick said. It also allows the code to be used by other researchers in new studies, making it easier for scientists to build on the work of their colleagues.”

23 Mar 2017 Open Science w/ Ben Marwick - Episode 49 Podcast interview by Chris Webster and Christopher Sims for ArchaeoTech “Dr. Ben Marwick returns to talk about the Open Science Interest Group, his recent publication on technology and open archaeology, and his workshop at the SAA Annual Meeting in Vancouver.”

17 Nov 2016 Ben Marwick and Coding at SAA2017 - Episode 40 Podcast interview by Chris Webster and Christopher Sims for ArchaeoTech “On today’s episode we talk to Ben Marwick. Ben has started a forum and a workshop for the 2017 Society for American Archaeology meetings in Vancouver, Canada. We talk about coding and what they’re going to do at the forum and the workshop. It’s a new kind of session and we’re excited to help announce it.”

16 April 2016 Journal buoys code-review push by Erika Check Hayden, published in Nature 520, 276-277.“Another is social: there is no etiquette governing how those who wish to replicate results should behave towards those whose work they examine. If authors of erroneous studies face public embarrassment and shaming, that can discourage other researchers from submitting to the same scrutiny. “It’s like taking your clothes off; you don’t want to be embarrassed by someone pointing at you because you have a lot of body hair,” says Ben Marwick,”

17 April 2010 Australian Archaeology and Rabbit Warrens Podcast interview by Diana O’Carroll and Duncan Howitt-Marshall for Naked Archaeology. “This month on Naked Archaeology: when and how did the first humans make it to Australia? We unearth the evidence from archaeology and genetics. Also this month we discover that Neanderthals could be relations of ours, after all. Plus, in Back Yard Archaeology Diana ventures into her own back yard to find out what was so special about rabbit warrens”

21 Nov 2022 Three levels of reproducible workflow remove barriers for archaeologists and increase accessibility My recommendation posted to PCI Archaeology based on reviews by Sam Leggett, Cyler Conrad, Cheng Liu and Lisa Lodwick of ‘Removing Barriers to Reproducible Research in Archaeology’ by Emma Karoune and Esther Plomp

28 Feb 2021 A database of lapidary artifacts in the Caribbean for the Ceramic Age My recommendation posted to PCI Archaeology based on reviews by Clarissa Belardelli, Stefano Costa, Robert Bischoff and Li-Ying Wang of ‘A database of lapidary artifacts in the Caribbean for the Ceramic Age’ by Alain Queffelec, Pierrick Fouéré, Jean-Baptiste Caverne

19 May 2020 When Field or Lab Work is not an Option - Leveraging Open Data Resources for Remote Research rOpenSci Blog with The rOpenSci Team, Brooke Anderson, Robin Lovelace, Ben Marwick, Ben Raymond, Anton Van de Putte, Louise Slater, Sam Zipper, Ilaria Prosdocimi, Sam Albers, and Claudia Vitolo. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted all of our lives in a very short period of time. Spring and summer are usually very busy as students prepare to go the field to engage in various data collection efforts. The pandemic has also disrupted these carefully planned activities as travel is suspended and local and remote field stations have closed indefinitely. A lost field season can be a major setback for a dissertation timeline and students will have to improvise. One promising opportunity to continue research efforts during these unprecedented times is taking advantage of the massive amounts of open scientific data that are freely available. Open data can form the basis of a review, synthesis, or new research. Inspired by tweets from Ethan White about “PhD research from a distance”, the rOpenSci team did an in-depth exploration of how we provide access to open data. Our goal is to inspire students to find research opportunities with open data and highlight some of the rOpenSci packages that already make programmatic access possible. We also highlight some examples of how specific collections of packages are being used right now in fields as varied as archaeology and climate science.

29 Aug 2019 Surveying archaeologists across the globe reveals deeper and more widespread roots of the human age, the Anthropocene The Conversation with Erle C. Ellis, Lucas Stephens, and Nicole Boivin. Think the anthropocene age started with plastics or nuclear testing? Think again. Surveying archaeologists around the globe underscores for how long and how widely people have been changing Earth.

19 Aug 2019 How to make the data and code for your manuscript available to peer reviewers before making it public. Blog post for Cambridge University Press on the Cambridge Core Blog. It’s no surprise to any internet user that the way we communicate is rapidly changing. For example, in the distant past, we learned the news of the world by reading a few paragraphs of tiny text in hard copies of newspapers. For especially newsworthy events we got a black and white photo or two. Nowadays, we are accustomed to news websites that transmit distant events to us with full color video, images, infographics, and a stream of live tweets. Just as news broadcasting is changing, so has scholarly communication.

30 Jul 2018 How researchers can solve the bottle-opener problem with compute capsules. Blog post for Cambridge University Press on the Cambridge Core Blog with Suzanne E. Pilaar Birch. Imagine a group of people playing a sport together on a hot day. Although it’s a friendly match, they play vigorously and at the end of their game they’re hot and thirsty. A few people in the group brought a cooler filled with ice and a variety of bottled beverages (among them our favourite, a tangy non-alcoholic ginger beer). They pass out the bottles and everyone is looking forward to a refreshing cool drink and trying the different flavours. But, disaster! No-one has a bottle-opener!

19 Nov 2018 New dates for ancient stone tools in China point to local invention of complex technology. The Conversation with Bo Li and Hu Yue. A fresh look at museum artifacts fills in a gap in the Asian archaeological record and refutes the idea that an advanced technique was imported from the West by early modern humans.

9 Aug 2017 Landscape archaeology and reproducible research at the 2017 Berlin Summer School. Blog post for the Software Sustainability Institute. Recently we concluded the 2017 Summer School on Reproducible Research in Landscape Archaeology at the Freie Universität Berlin (17th–21th July), funded and jointly organised by Exc264 Topoi, CRC1266, and ISAAKiel. With a group of 15 archaeologists and geographers from Berlin, Kiel and Cologne, we spent a week learning advanced geostatistics and how to make our research more reproducible.

19 Jul 2017 Here’s the three-pronged approach we’re using in our own research to tackle the reproducibility issue. The Conversation with Zenobia Jacobs. A team of archaeologists strived to improve the reproducibility of their results, influencing their choices in the field, in the lab and during data analysis.

19 Jul 2017 Buried tools and pigments tell a new history of humans in Australia for 65,000 years. The Conversation with Chris Clarkson, Lynley Wallis, Richard Fullagar, and Zenobia Jacobs. A new study pushes back the first known evidence of human activity in Australia – to 65,000 years ago.

9 Nov 2015 How computers broke science – and what we can do to fix it. The Conversation. Virtually every researcher relies on computers to collect or analyze data. But when computers are opaque black boxes that manipulate data, it’s impossible to replicate studies – a core value for science.

24 Apr 2015 Archaeology with open-source software. It’s getting easier. Blog post for the Software Sustainability Institute. This short post is written for archaeologists who frequently perform common data analysis and visualisation tasks in Excel, SPSS or similar commercial packages.

10 Mar 2015 Teaching in Yangon. Blog post for Software Carpentry. On Sat 7 March I spent a full day teaching a Software Carpentry workshop at the University of Yangon with 23 archaeologists from the Department of Archaeology. The workshop is part of a training component of an archaeological research project funded by the Australian Research Council, the University of Washington and the University of Wollongong.

2024

Marwick B. (2024) Introducing the Associate Editor of Reproducibility. Advances in Archaeological Practice. 2024;12(2):61-62. [PDF] [DOI]

Matzig D. N., Marwick B., Riede F. and Warnock R. C. M. (2024) A macroevolutionary analysis of European Late Upper Palaeolithic stone tool shape using a Bayesian phylodynamic framework. Royal Society Open Science 11240321 [PDF] [code & data] [DOI]

DiCiro, A., N. Mitchell, and B. Marwick (2024). Everything is a Deposit: An interview with pioneering geoarchaeologist Julie K. Stein. Bulletin of the History of Archaeology [pre-print] [PDF] [DOI]

Hu, Y., Marwick, B., Lu, H. et al. (2024) Lithic technologies at Guanyindong cave, Southwest China: diversity and innovation during the Chinese Middle Palaeolithic. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 16, 119 [PDF] [DOI]

Stoudt S, Jernite Y, Marshall B, Marwick B, Sharan M, et al. (2024) Ten simple rules for building and maintaining a responsible data science workflow. PLOS Computational Biology 20(7): e1012232. [PDF] [DOI]

2023

Park, G., Lombard, M., Chong, D., B. Marwick (2023). Variation in Use of East Asian Late Paleolithic Weapons: a Study of Tip Cross-sectional Area of Stemmed Points from Korea. Journal Paleolithic Archaeology 6, 36 (2023). [pre-print] [PDF] [code & data] [DOI]

Chen, Y. & B. Marwick (2023). Women in the Lab, Men in the Field? Correlations between Gender and Research Topics at Three Major Archaeology Conferences, Journal of Field Archaeology [pre-print] [PDF] [code & data] [DOI]

Mackay, A., Saktura, R.B.K., O’Driscoll, C.A., Boyd, K., B. Marwick et al. (2023). The Middle Stone Age Sequence at Klipfonteinrand 1 (KFR1), Western Cape, South Africa. Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology 6, 20 [DOI]

Shafizadeh, S. & B. Marwick (2023). Book review: The Upper Paleolithic of Zagros: by Sonia Shidrang, Tehran, Iran, Iranology Foundation, 2019, 5 chapters, 128 pp., many figures [Persian language]. Lithic Technology, [DOI]

Hu, Y., Marwick, B., Lu, H., Hou, Y., Huang, W., & Li, B. (2023). Evidence of Levallois strategies on cores at Guanyindong cave, Southwest China during the Late Middle Pleistocene. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 47, 103727. [PDF] [DOI]

2022

Hayes, E.H., Fullagar, R., Field, J.H. … Marwick, B. et al. (2022). 65,000-years of continuous grinding stone use at Madjedbebe, Northern Australia. Scientific Reports 12, 11747 [DOI]

Riede, F., A. Araujo, A, and B. Marwick (2022). Robert C. Dunnell’s Systematics in Prehistory at 50. Evolutionary Anthropology [DOI] [code & data] [preprint]

Florin, A S., A. S. Fairbairn, M. Nango, D. Djandjomerr, Quan Hua, B. Marwick, D. C. Reutens, R. Fullagar, M. Smith, L. A. Wallis, C. Clarkson (2022). 65,000 years of changing plant food and landscape use at Madjedbebe, Mirarr country, northern Australia. Quaternary Science Reviews [DOI] [code & data] [preprint]

Park, G., Wang, L., & Marwick, B. (2022). How do archaeologists write about racism? Computational text analysis of 41 years of Society for American Archaeology annual meeting abstracts. Antiquity, 1-14. [PDF] [DOI] [code & data] [preprint]

Marwick, Ben and Li-Ying Wang (2022). How to align disciplinary ideals with actual practices: Transparency and openness in archaeological science. In: Ethan Watrall, Lynne Goldstein (eds) Digital Heritage and Archaeology in Practice. University Press Florida. [pre-print] [code & data]

Marwick, Ben, Son, Pham Tanh, Brewer, Rachel, Wang, Li-Ying (2022) Tektite geoarchaeology in mainland Southeast Asia. SocArXiv, 93fpa, ver. 6, peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Archaeology, https://osf.io/93fpa

Park, Gayoung & Ben Marwick (2022). How did the introduction of stemmed points affect mobility and site occupation during the late Pleistocene in Korea? Quaternary Science Reviews, 277, 107312. [PDF] [DOI] [code & data]

Dosseto, Anthony, and Ben Marwick (2022). UThwigl — An R Package for Closed- and Open-System Uranium–Thorium Dating. Quaternary Geochronology 67: 101235. [PDF] [DOI] [code & data]

2021

Bulbeck, D., & Marwick, B. (2021). Stone Industries of Mainland and Island Southeast Asia. In Charles F. W. Higham and Nam C. Kim (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Early Southeast Asia. Oxford University Press. [PDF] [DOI]

Conrad, Cyler, Rasmi Shoocongdej, Ben Marwick, et al. (2021). Re-Evaluating Pleistocene–Holocene Occupation of Cave Sites in North-West Thailand: New Radiocarbon and Luminescence Dating. Antiquity [PDF] [DOI] [code & data]

Wang, Li-Ying and Ben Marwick (2021). A Bayesian networks approach to infer social changes in burials in northeastern Taiwan during the European colonization period. Journal of Archaeological Science 134: 105471 [PDF] [DOI] [code & data] [preprint]

Marwick, Ben and Prema Smith (2021). World Heritage sites on Wikipedia: Cultural heritage activism in a context of constrained agency. Big Data & Society January–June: 1–19 [PDF] [DOI] [code & data]

Marwick, Ben, Li-Ying Wang, Kaylee Pruski, Eloise Potter,and Raelee Hampton (2021). Views on the Future of Archaeological Ethics from the 2020 SAA Ethics Survey. The SAA Archaeological Record Volume 21, No. 2 March 2021, p. 45-54 [online] [PDF] [DOI]

Pruski, Kaylee, Ben Marwick, Eloise Potter, Raelee Hampton, and Li-Ying Wang (2021). Views on the Nine Principles of Archaeological Ethics from the 2020 SAA Ethics Survey. The SAA Archaeological Record Volume 21, No. 2 March 2021, p. 29-40 [online] [PDF] [DOI]

Florin, S.A., Roberts, P., Marwick, B. et al. (2021) Pandanus nutshell generates a palaeoprecipitation record for human occupation at Madjedbebe, northern Australia. Nature Ecology and Evolution . [PDF] [DOI] [code & data]

Hayes, E. H., Field, J. H., Coster, A. C. F., Fullagar, R., Matheson, C., Florin, S. A., Nango, M., Djandjomerr, D., Marwick, B., Wallis, L. A., Smith, M. A., & Clarkson, C. (2021). Holocene grinding stones at Madjedbebe reveal the processing of starchy plant taxa and animal tissue. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 35, 102754. [PDF] [DOI]

2020

Marwick, Ben, Pham Thanh Son, May Su Ko 2020 Over research and ethics dumping in international archaeology. SPAFA Journal Vol 4 (2020), [DOI] [pre-print]

Nüst D, Sochat V, Marwick B, Eglen SJ, Head T, Hirst T, et al. (2020) Ten simple rules for writing Dockerfiles for reproducible data science. PLoS Comput Biol 16(11): e1008316. [DOI]

Nüst, D., Eddelbuettel, D., Bennett, D., Cannoodt, R., Clark, D., Daróczi, G., Edmondson, M., Fay, C., Hughes, E., Kjeldgaard, L., Lopp, S., Marwick, B., Nolis, H., Nolis, J., Ooi, H., Ram, K., Ross, N., Shepherd, L., Sólymos, P., … Xiao, N. 2020. The Rockerverse: Packages and Applications for Containerisation with R. The R Journal, 12(1), 437–461. arXiv preprint arXiv:2001.10641 [DOI]

Marwick, B. 2020. Open access to publications to expand participation in archaeology. Norwegian Archaeological Review [PDF] [DOI] [pre-print]

Wang, L. and B. Marwick 2020. Ornaments as indicators of social changes in northeastern Taiwan before and after European colonial period. Archaeological Research in Asia [PDF] [DOI] [code & data] [preprint]

Wang, L. and B. Marwick 2020. Investigating shape standardization using geometric morphometry of pottery from Iron Age northeastern Taiwan. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 33 [PDF] [DOI] [code & data] [preprint]

Marwick, B. 2020. 考古学における研究成果公開の動向　－データ管理・方法の透明性・再現性 [Transparency, Reproducibility, Data Management and Methods for Archaeological Research Publications]. In 独立行政法人国立文化財機構奈良文化財研究所 2020 『デジタル技術による文化財情報の記録と利活用2』奈良文化財研究所研究報告24 [Nara Institute of Cultural Assets, National Institute of Cultural Assets, Independent Administrative Corporation 2020 “Recording and Utilization of Cultural Property Information via Digital Technologies Vol. 2 Open Science, Data Preservation, Intellectual Property, GIS” Nara Institute of Cultural Assets Research Report 24] [DOI] [PDF]

Florin, S. Anna, Andrew S. Fairbairn, May Nango, Djaykuk Djandjomerr, Ben Marwick, Richard Fullagar, Mike Smith, Lynley A. Wallis & Chris Clarkson (2020). The first Australian plant foods at Madjedbebe, 65,000–53,000 years ago. Nature Communications 11, 924 [DOI] [code & data]

Riede, Felix, Astolfo G.M. Araujo, Michael C. Barton, Knut Andreas Bergsvik, Huw S. Groucutt, Shumon T. Hussain, Javier Fernandez‐Lopez de Pablo, Andreas Maier, Ben Marwick, Lydia Pyne, Kathryn Ranhorn, Natasha Reynolds, Julien Riel‐Salvatore, Florian Sauer, Kamil Serwatka, Annabell Zander (2020). Cultural taxonomies in the Paleolithic—Old questions, novel perspectives. Evolutionary Anthropology 1–13. [DOI]

Schmidt, S.C. and Marwick, B., (2020). Tool-Driven Revolutions in Archaeological Science. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 3(1), pp.18–32. [DOI] [code & data]

Hayes, E., R. Fullagar, B. Marwick (2020) Australian Usewear/Residue Studies, Artefact Design and Multi-purpose Tools. In: Juan F. Gibaja, Joao Marreiros, Niccolò Mazzucco, Ignacio Clemente (eds) Hunter-Gatherers’ Tool-Kit: A Functional Perspective. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. [code & data]

2019

Gray, C. T., & Marwick, B. (2019). Truth, Proof, and Reproducibility: There’s No Counter-Attack for the Codeless. In H. Nguyen (Ed.), Communications in Computer and Information Science 1150: Statistics and Data Science (pp. 111–129). Springer. [DOI] [arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.05947] [PDF] [code & data]

Yue Hu, Qijun Ruan, Jianhu Liu, Ben Marwick, Bo Li (2019) Luminescence chronology and lithic technology of Tianhuadong Cave, an early Upper Pleistocene Paleolithic site in southwest China. Quaternary Research [DOI] [PDF]

Yue Hu, Ben Marwick, Jia-Fu Zhang, Xue Rui, Ya-Mei Hou, Wen-Rong Chen, Wei-Wen Huang, Bo Li (2019) Robust technological readings identify integrated structures typical of the Levallois concept in Guanyindong Cave, South China National Science Review [DOI]

Marwick, B., Wang, L.-Y., Robinson, R., & Loiselle, H. (2019) How to Use Replication Assignments for Teaching Integrity in Empirical Archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Practice, 1–9. [PDF] [DOI] [preprint] [code & data]

Marwick, B. (2019). Galisonian logic devices and data availability: Revitalising Upper Palaeolithic cultural taxonomies. Antiquity, 93(371), 1365-1367. [PDF] [DOI] [preprint]

Bulbeck, D., O’Connor, S., Fakhri, Fenner, J. N., Marwick, B., Suryatman, Wibowo, U. P. (2019). Patterned and plain baked clay from pre-pottery contexts in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. Antiquity, 93(371), 1284-1302 [DOI] [PDF] [code & data]

Stephens, L., Fuller, D., Boivin, N., Rick, T., Gauthier, N., Kay, A., Marwick, B., […] Ellis, E. (2019). Archaeological assessment reveals Earth’s early transformation through land use. Science, 365(6456), 897–902. [DOI] [PDF] [code & data]

Dominick, Doreena, Stephen R. Wilson,, Clare Paton-Walsh, Ruhi Humphries, Élise-Andrée Guérette, Melita Keywood, Paul Selleck, Dagmar Kubistin and Ben Marwick (2019). “Particle Formation in a Complex Environment.” Atmosphere 10(5): 275. [DOI]

Schaarschmidt, M., Fu, X., Li, B., Marwick, B., Khaing, K., Douka, K., & Roberts, R. G. (2019) pIRIR and IR-RF dating of archaeological deposits at Badahlin and Gu Myaung Caves–First luminescence ages for Myanmar. Quaternary Geochronology 49, 262-270 [DOI]

2018

Marwick, B. (2018) R Coding and Modelling. The Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences. Edited by Sandra L. López Varela. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [DOI] [PDF]

Nüst, D. C Boettiger, B Marwick (2018) How to Read a Research Compendium. arXiv preprint arXiv:1806.09525

Hu, Y., Marwick, B., Zhang, J.-F., Rui, X., Hou, Y.-M., Yue, J.-P., … Li, B. (2018). Late Middle Pleistocene Levallois stone-tool technology in southwest China. Nature [DOI] [PDF]

Marwick, B. (2018) Review of “Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis in Archaeological Computational Modeling by Marieka Brouwer Burg, Hans Peeters, and William A. Lovis, eds.,” Journal of Anthropological Research 74, no. 3 (Fall): 424-425. [DOI] [PDF]

Dominick, D., Wilson, S. R., Paton-Walsh, C., Humphries, R., Guérette, E.-A., Keywood, M.,… Marwick, B. (2018). Characteristics of airborne particle number size distributions in a coastal-urban environment. Atmospheric Environment, 186, 256–265. [DOI] [PDF]

O’Connor, S., D. Bulbeck, P. Piper, F. Aziz, B. Marwick et al. 2018 The human occupation record of Gua Mo’o hono shelter, Towuti-Routa region of Southeastern Sulawesi. In The Archaeology of Sulawesi: Current Research on the Pleistocene to the Historic Period (Terra Australis 48) ANU E Press: Canberra. [DOI] [PDF]

Clarkson, Chris, R. G. Roberts, Z. Jacobs, B. Marwick, R. Fullagar, L. J. Arnold & Q. Hua 2018 Reply to comments on Clarkson et al. (2017) ‘Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago’, Australian Archaeology [DOI] [PDF] [code & data]

Marwick, B., & Birch, S. 2018 A Standard for the Scholarly Citation of Archaeological Data as an Incentive to Data Sharing. Advances in Archaeological Practice 1-19. [DOI] [preprint] [PDF] [code & data]

Marwick, B. 2018 The Hoabinhian of Southeast Asia and its Relationship to Regional Pleistocene Lithic Technologies. In Robinson, Erick, Sellet, Frederic (Eds.) Lithic Technological Organization and Paleoenvironmental Change Springer. pp. 63-78 [DOI] [preprint] [PDF]

Marwick, B., Boettiger, C., & Mullen, L. 2018 Packaging data analytical work reproducibly using R (and friends). The American Statistician [PDF] [DOI] [preprint]

2017

Marwick, B., Hiscock, P., Sullivan, M., & Hughes, P. 2017 Landform boundary effects on Holocene forager landscape use in arid South Australia. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. [DOI] [preprint] [code & data]

Clarkson, Chris, Zenobia Jacobs , Ben Marwick , Richard Fullagar , Lynley Wallis , Mike Smith , Richard Roberts , Elspeth Hayes , Kelsey Lowe , Xavier Carah , S. Anna Florin , Jessica McNeil , Lee Arnold , Quan Hua , Jillian Huntley , Helen Brand , Andrew Fairbairn , Kate Connell , Kasih Norman , Tiina Manne , James Shulmeister , Tessa Murphy , Lindsey Lyle , Makiah Salinas , Gayoung Park , Mara Page , Colin Pardoe 2017 Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago. Nature 547(7663), 306. [DOI] [code & data] [PDF]

Marwick, B, d’Alpoim Guedes, J., Barton, C. M., Bates, L. A., Baxter, M., Bevan, A., Bollwerk, E. A., Bocinsky, R. K., Brughmans, T., Carter, A. K., Conrad, C., Contreras, D. A., Costa, S., Crema, E. R., Daggett, A., Davies, B., Drake, B. L., Dye, T. S., France, P., Fullagar, R., Giusti, D., Graham, S., Harris, M. D., Hawks, J., Health, S., Huffer, D., Kansa, E. C., Kansa, S. W., Madsen, M. E., Melcher, J., Negre, J., Neiman, F. D., Opitz, R., Orton, D. C., Przstupa, P., Raviele, M., Riel-Savatore, J., Riris, P., Romanowska, I., Smith, J., Strupler, N., Ullah, I. I., Van Vlack, H. G., VanValkenburgh, N., Watrall, E. C., Webster, C., Wells, J., Winters, J., and Wren, C. D. (2017) Open science in archaeology. SAA Archaeological Record, 17(4), pp. 8-14. [PDF] [preprint]

Eglen, S. J., Marwick, B., Halchenko, Y. O., Hanke, M., Sufi, S., Gleeson, P., … & Wachtler, T. (2017). Toward standard practices for sharing computer code and programs in neuroscience. Nature Neuroscience 20(6), 770-773. [DOI] [preprint] [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2017 Computational reproducibility in archaeological research: Basic principles and a case study of their implementation. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 24(2), 424-450. [PDF] [DOI] [preprint] [code & data]

Marwick, B., Hayes, E., Clarkson, C., & Fullagar, R. 2017 Movement of lithics by trampling: An experiment in the Madjedbebe sediments, northern Australia. Journal of Archaeological Science 79, 73-85. [DOI] [preprint] [code & data]

Marwick, B., Van Vlack, H. G., Conrad, C., Shoocongdej, R., Thongcharoenchaikit, C., & Kwak, S. 2017 Adaptations to sea level change and transitions to agriculture at Khao Toh Chong rockshelter, Peninsular Thailand. Journal of Archaeological Science 77, 94-108. [DOI] [code & data]

Marwick, B. and B. Bouasisengpaseuth 2017 The History and Practice of Archaeology in Laos. In Junko Habu, Peter Lape, John Olsen and Jing Zhichun (eds) Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. p. 89-95 [DOI] [preprint]

Marwick 2017 Using R and Related Tools for Reproducible Research in Archaeology. In Kitzes, J., Turek, D., & Deniz, F. (Eds.) The Practice of Reproducible Research: Case Studies and Lessons from the Data-Intensive Sciences. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. [online]

Ram, K. B. Marwick 2017 Building Towards a Future Where Reproducible, Open Science is the Norm. In Kitzes, J., Turek, D., & Deniz, F. (Eds.) The Practice of Reproducible Research: Case Studies and Lessons from the Data-Intensive Sciences. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. [online]

Rokem, A., B. Marwick, V. Staneva 2017 Assessing Reproducibility. In Kitzes, J., Turek, D., & Deniz, F. (Eds.) The Practice of Reproducible Research: Case Studies and Lessons from the Data-Intensive Sciences. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. University of California Press. [online]

2016

Suryatman, S., O’Connor, S., Bulbeck, D., Marwick, B., Oktaviana, A. A., & Wibowo, U. P. 2016 Teknologi Litik di Situs Talimbue, Sulawesi Tenggara: Teknologi Berlanjut dari Masa Pleistosen Akhir Hingga Holosen. AMERTA 34(2), 81-98 [DOI] [PDF]

Aplin, K., Sue O’Connor, David Bulbeck, Philip J. Piper, Ben Marwick, Emma St Pierre, Fadhila Aziz 2016 The Walandawe Tradition from Southeast Sulawesi and Osseous Artifact Traditions in Island Southeast Asia. In Michelle C. Langley (ed) Osseous Projectile Weaponry: Towards an Understanding of Pleistocene Cultural Variability. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series, Springer. pp 189-208 [DOI] [PDF]

Bulbeck, D., F.A. Aziz, S. O’Connor, A. Calo, J.N. Fenner, B. Marwick, J. Feathers 2016 Mortuary Caves and the Dammar Trade in the Towuti–Routa Region, Sulawesi, in an Island Southeast Asian Context. Asian Perspectives 55 (2), 148-183 [DOI] [PDF]

Marwick, B., C. Clarkson, S. O’Connor, S. Collins 2016 Early modern human lithic technology from Jerimalai, East Timor. Journal of Human Evolution 101, 45-64 [DOI] [PDF] [Code & Data]

Steele, T. E., A. MacKay, K. E. Fitzsimmons, M. Igreja, B. Marwick 2016 Varsche Rivier 003: A Middle and Later Stone Age Site with Still Bay and Howiesons Poort Assemblages in Southern Namaqualand, South Africa. PaleoAnthropology 100, 163, 2016 [PDF] [Code & Data]

Conrad, C., C. Higham, M. Eda, & B. Marwick 2016 Palaeoecology and Forager Subsistence Strategies during the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition: A Reinvestigation of the Zooarchaeological Assemblage from Spirit Cave, Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand. Asian Perspectives 55 (1), 2-27 [PDF] [Code & Data]

2015

Kretzler, I. and B. Marwick 2015 Investigating Archaeologists’ Engagement With Feminist Theory Using Textual Macroanalysis: 25 Years after Chacmool 1989. In Robyn Crook, Kim Edwards and Colleen Hughes (eds), BREAKING BARRIERS: Proceedings of the 47th Annual Chacmool Archaeological Conference November 7-9, 2014 Calgary, Alberta, Canada, The Chacmool Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary. p. 158-168 [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2015 Review of “Geoarchaeology of Aboriginal Landscapes in Semi‐Arid Australia” by Simon J. Holdaway and Patricia C. Fanning. 2014. CSIRO, Collingwood. Geoarchaeology 30 (5), 459-461 [PDF]

Aung, T. H., B. Marwick, & C. Conrad 2015 Palaeolithic zooarchaeology in Myanmar: a review and future prospects. Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology 39: 50-56. [PDF]

Kwak, S. and B. Marwick 2015 What did they cook? A preliminary investigation into culinary practices and pottery use in the central part of the Korean peninsula during the mid to late Holocene. Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology 37: 25-32. [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2015 Peer Comment: Films, digs and death: a review of the Project Eliseg videos. Internet Archaeology 10.11141/ia.39.3

Clarkson, C., Mike Smith, Ben Marwick, Richard Fullagar, Lynley A. Wallis, Patrick Faulkner, Tiina Manne, Elspeth Hayes, Richard G. Roberts, Zenobia Jacobs, Xavier Carah, Kelsey M. Lowe, Jacqueline Matthews, S. Anna Florin 2015 The archaeology, chronology and stratigraphy of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II): A site in northern Australia with early occupation. Journal of Human Evolution [PDF] [sciencedirect.com] [code & data]

2014

Lowe, K., Wallis, L., Pardoe, C., Marwick, B., Clarkson, C., Manne, T., Smith, M. and R. Fullagar 2014 Ground-penetrating radar and burial practices in western Arnhem Land, Australia. Archaeology in Oceania [PDF] [wiley.com] [code & data]

Mackay A, Sumner A, Jacobs Z, Marwick B, Bluff K and Shaw M 2014. Putslaagte 1 (PL1), the Doring River, and the later Middle Stone Age in southern Africa's Winter Rainfall Zone. Quaternary International. [PDF] [sciencedirect.com] [code & data]

2013

Marwick, B. 2013. Discovery of Emergent Issues and Controversies in Anthropology Using Text Mining, Topic Modeling, and Social Network Analysis of Microblog Content. In Yanchang Zhao, Yonghua Cen (eds) Data Mining Applications with R. Elsevier. p. 63-93 [PDF] [sciencedirect.com] [code & data]

Marwick, B., 2013. Multiple Optima in Hoabinhian flaked stone artefact palaeoeconomics and palaeoecology at two archaeological sites in Northwest Thailand. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32, 553-564. [PDF] [sciencedirect.com] [code & data]

Conrad, C. H. Van Vlack, B. Marwick, C. Thongcharoenchaikit
R. Shoocongdej & B. Chaisuwan 2013 Summary of Vertebrate and Molluscan Assemblages Excavated from Late-Pleistocene and Holocene Deposits at Khao Toh Chong Rockshelter, Krabi, Thailand. The Thailand Natural History Museum Journal 7(1): 11-21 [PDF]

Marwick, B., R. Shoocongdej, C. Thongcharoenchaikit, B. Chaisuwan, C. Khowkhiew and S. Kwak 2013. Hierarchies of engagement and understanding: Community engagement during archaeological excavations at Khao Toh Chong rockshelter, Krabi, Thailand. In S. O'Connor (ed) Transcending the Culture-Nature Divide in Cultural Heritage. Terra Australis, ANU E Press. [PDF] [whole book]

Brockwell, S., B. Marwick, P. Bourke, P. Faulkner and R. Willan 2013. Late Holocene climate change and human behavioural variability in the coastal wet-dry tropics of northern Australia: Evidence from a pilot study of oxygen isotopes in marine bivalve shells from archaeological sites. Australian Archaeology 76:21–33 [PDF]

2012

Sullivan, M., T. L. Field, P. Hughes, B. Marwick, P. Przystupa and J. K. Feathers 2012. OSL ages that inform late phases of dune formation and human occupation near Olympic Dam in northeastern South Australia Quaternary Australasia 29 (1): 5-11 [PDF] 

Marwick, B. 2012.  A Cladistic Evaluation of Ancient Thai Bronze Buddha Images: Six Tests for a Phylogenetic Signal in the Griswold Collection. In Dominik Bonatz, Andreas Reinecke and Mai Lin Tjoa-Bonatz (eds) Connecting Empires. National University of Singapore Press. pp. 159-176. [PDF]

2011

Marwick, B and A. Mackay (eds) 2011. Keeping your Edge: Recent Approaches to the Organisation of Stone Artefact Technology. BAR S2273. [PDF] [Archaeopress]

Mackay, A. and B. Marwick 2011. Costs and benefits in technological decision making under variable conditions: examples from the late Pleistocene in southern Africa. In B. Marwick and A. Mackay (eds) Keeping your Edge: Recent Approaches to the Organisation of Stone Artefact Technology. BAR S2273. [PDF]

Marwick, B. and M. K. Gagan 2011. Late Pleistocene monsoon variability in northwest Thailand: an oxygen isotope sequence from the bivalve Margaritanopsis laosensis excavated in Mae Hong Son province. Quaternary Science Reviews 30(21-22): 3088-3098 [sciencedirect.com] [PDF]

Hughes, P. P. Hiscock, M. Sullivan and B. Marwick. 2011. An outline of archaeological investigations for the Olympic Dam Expansion in arid northeast South Australia. Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia 34:21-37 [PDF]

2010

Marwick, B. 2010. Self-image, the long view and archaeological engagement with film: an animated case study. World Archaeology 42(3): 394–404  [PDF] 

2009

Marwick, B. 2009a. Review of "Cultural Transmission and Material Culture: Breaking Down Boundaries" edited by Miriam Stark, Brenda Bowser, and Lee Horne (2008). American Anthropologist 111(4): 540-54169: 82. [wiley.com] [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2009b. Review of "Place as Occupational Histories: An Investigation of the Deflated Surface Archaeological Record of Pine Point and Langwell Stations, Western New South Wales, Australia." by Justin Shiner. Archaeopress, Oxford, (2008). Australian Archaeology 69: 82. [australianarchaeologicalassociation.com.au] [PDF]

Marwick, B., White, J.C., B. Bouasisengpaseuth 2009. The Middle Mekong Archaeology Project and International Collaboration in Luang Prabang, Laos. SAA Archaeological Record 9 (3) 25-27 [saa.org] [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2009c. Biogeography of Middle Pleistocene hominins in mainland Southeast Asia: A review of current evidence, Quaternary International  202 (2009) 51–58 [sciencedirect.com] [PDF]

White, J.C., Lewis, H., Bouasisengpaseuth, B., Marwick, B. and K. Arrell 2009. Archaeological investigations in northern Laos: New contributions to Southeast Asian prehistory. Antiquity 83(319) [antiquity.ac.uk]

Marwick, B. 2009d. Change or Decay? An interpretation of late Holocene archaeological evidence from the Hamersley Plateau, Western Australia. Archaeology in Oceania 44: 16-22 [PDF]

Fairbairn, A., S. O'Connor and B. Marwick (eds) 2009. New Directions in Archaeological Science. Terra Australis 28. ANU E Press: Canberra [PDF]

2008

Marwick, B. 2008a. Stone artefacts and recent research in the archaeology of mainland Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers. Before Farming 2008/4  [wapress.co.uk] [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2008b. Three styles of Darwinian evolution in the analysis of stone artefacts: Which one to use in mainland Southeast Asia? Australian Archaeology 67: 79-86  [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2008c. Beyond typologies: The reduction thesis and its implications for lithic assemblages in Southeast Asia. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 28: 108-116 [PDF at ejournal.anu.edu.au]

Marwick, B. 2008d. What attributes are important for the measurement of assemblage reduction intensity? Results from an experimental stone artefact assemblage with relevance to the Hoabinhian of mainland Southeast Asia. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(5): 1189-1200 [sciencedirect.com] [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2008e. Review of "Genes, Culture and Human Evolution: A Synthesis." by Linda Stone and Paul F. Lurquin. Blackwell, Oxford, (2005). The Australian Journal of Anthropology 19(1): 119-121. [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2008f. Human Behavioural Ecology and Stone Artefacts in Northwest Thailand during the Terminal Pleistocene and Holocene. In Jean-Pierre Pautreau (ed) Southeast Asian Prehistory: The 11th EurASEAA Conference. Musée de Bougon: Paris. pp. 37-49. 

2007

Marwick, B. 2007a. Approaches to Flaked Stone Artefact Archaeology in Thailand : A Historical Review. Silpakorn University International Journal 7:49-88 [PDF at journal.su.ac.th]

O'Connor, S. and B. Marwick 2007b. Significant Places: Sites of Importance in the Indigenous Peopling of Australia. Department of Environment and Water Resources: Canberra.

Marwick, B. 2007c. Review of "The origins and evolution of cultures", by Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd. Oxford University Press, London, (2004). The Australian Journal of Anthropology 18(1): 97-8 [PDF]

2006

Marwick, B. 2006a. What can archaeology do with Boyd and Richerson's cultural evolutionary program? The Review of Archaeology 26(2): 30-40. [PDF at dspace.anu.edu.au]

Bellwood, P. Marwick, B. and R. Pearson (eds.) 2006b. Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association 26 

2005

Marwick, B. 2005a. The interpersonal origins of language: Social and linguistic implications of an archaeological approach to language evolution. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 1.2: 197-224. [PDF at dspace.anu.edu.au]

Marwick, B. 2005b. Element concentrations and magnetic susceptibility of anthrosols: Indicators of prehistoric human occupation in the inland Pilbara, Western Australia. Journal of Archaeological Science 32: 1357-1368. [sciencedirect.com] [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2005c. Review of "Marx's ghost: Conversations with archaeologists", by Thomas C. Patterson. Berg, Oxford. (2003). Anthropological Forum 15(1): 92-94 [PDF]

Marwick, B. 2005d. Review of "Agency uncovered: Archaeological perspectives on social agency, power, and being human, edited by Andrew Gardner. UCL Press, London, (2004). Anthropological Forum 15(2): 203-204.[PDF]

2003

Marwick, B. 2003a. Pleistocene exchange networks as evidence for the evolution of language. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17(1): 67-81. [PDF at dspace.anu.edu.au]

Marwick, B. 2003b. Review of "Batavia's graveyard. The true story of the mad heretic who lead history's bloodiest mutiny", by Mike Dash. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. (2002). Limina vol. 9: 236-240. [PDF]

2002

Marwick, B. 2002a. Milly's Cave: Evidence for human occupation of the Inland Pilbara during the Last Glacial Maximum. Tempus 7: 21-33. [PDF at dspace.anu.edu.au]

Marwick, B. 2002b. Evidence of prehistoric occupation of the Abrolhos Islands, Western Australia. Records of the Western Australian Museum 20(4): 461-464. [PDF at http://museum.wa.gov.au/]

7 Dec 2023 SEAMEO SPAFA’s “Archaeology Ethics in Southeast Asia” series Session I: Introduction (2:35:21) The inaugural session of SEAMEO SPAFA’s “Archaeology Ethics in Southeast Asia” series took place on Zoom and SPAFA’s Facebook Live on 7 December 2023 at 10:00 am (GMT+7). During the opening session, attendees met the resource persons specializing in ethical matters within Southeast Asian archaeology and got an overview of the series (four online and one onsite during SPAFACON 2024). Questions were then gathered from the audience and posed to the speakers at the end. The “Archaeology Ethics in Southeast Asia” series will cover issues of gender and sex discrimination (including harassment), accessibility and inclusivity of the discipline (including but not limited to ableism and ageism), as well as intellectual property. I was invited to give a brief presentation in this session.

12 Oct 2023 Reputational risk and questionable research practices in archaeological science (22:18) This was a presentation in the session on ‘Data Dissemination’ in the Wenner-Gren Workshop organized by Jess Beck & Laura Heath-Stout: Socio-Politics of Knowledge Production in Anthropology & Archaeology. Abstract: Uneven access to methods and data is an important dimension of global inequality in archaeological knowledge production. Computational methods and digital data, because of their nonphysical nature, have high potential for rapid and low-cost distribution far beyond their points of origin. This represents an opportunity to improve access and participation for many scholars. In this paper I explore if reputational risk might explain some of the reluctance for archaeologists to share their materials. If researchers are concerned that sharing code and data may enable others to identify either intentional or accidental questionable research practices (QRPs) that would harm their reputation, then we might predict low levels of sharing to be accompanied by high levels of QRPs. Alternatively, if nonreputational factors such as a lack of awareness or time limitations better explain low levels of sharing, we might predict low levels of QRPs. I investigate QRPs by measuring the prevalence of p-hacking (manipulation of a data analysis to produce a statistically significant result) in 5000 journal articles. The results show a strong signal of p-hacking, supporting reputational risk as a factor in the persistence of inequalities in archaeological knowledge production. To address this I propose changes to research evaluation and communication of archaeological research.

13 Sept 2021 PEMSEA Panel 6: The Future Southeast Asian Archaeology in the U.S. (2:01:26) This panel discussion was part of a series hosted by the Program on Early Modern Southeast Asia. Abstract: Southeast Asian archaeology programs are underrepresented in the US higher education system. Although SE Asian groups now comprise one of the largest immigrant groups in the country, only five institutions have a distinctly Southeast Asian archaeology program. In this panel, we bring together early- and mid-career US-based archaeologists to discuss ways to strengthen SE Asian archaeology and to help address issues of access, gender disparity, and representation. The panelists will also talk about how their respective research in SE Asia facilitate the inclusion of SE Asian archaeological observations to archaeological theory and method.

25 June 2021 Improving the transparency and reproducibility of historical archaeological research: A case study in teaching how slavery ended at New River Village, Nevis This presentation was invited by DAACS (Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery) for their series Discover with DAACS Conversations

5 Mar 2021 Data Skills & Data Studies: A New Interdisciplinary Minor in Data Science (34:01) This presentation is an overview of the UW’s new interdisciplinary Minor in Data Science. I was invited by the South Big Data Innovation Hub Education and Workforce Working Group.

18 Feb 2021 Galisonian Logic Devices as Affordances for Decolonizing Archaeology (1:10:09) This presentation was given on 18 February 2021 as part of the Garrod Research seminar series of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge. Abstract: An enduring legacy of colonial logics in archaeology is the collection and hoarding of archaeological objects and data. Many museums are working to return objects to their traditional owners, and many countries have legislation to support this. While norms of object repatriation are becoming increasingly widespread and concrete, we are still far from a consensus about how to address colonial practices in sharing archaeological data and methods. Many archaeologists hoard and refuse to share data, for bad reasons, and free from consequences. I describe how the use of Galisonian logic devices in archaeology provides an opening to adjust behaviours about data sharing. I analyse bibliometric data to show what devices are currently showing the most productivity as affordances to decolonize attitudes about data and method sharing. I review best practices on navigating options for making data and methods available, recognising that not all data is fit for openness, and that often archaeologists don’t have enough information to be the sole decision-maker about data and method availability.

25 Sept 2020 Tool-Driven Revolutions in Archaeological Science: Open Source and Open Science as Transcendental Tools (1:14:11) A presentation invited by the Archaeology Information Interest Group of the Archaeology Centre, University of Toronto. Abstract: “There is an argument in philosophy of science that revolutions in science are either idea-driven or tool-driven. We explore this debate in light of recent efforts by many scientific disciplines to embrace methods to improve the reproducibility of their research. One of the most profound changes driven by this concern for reproducibility and transparency is from analysing data using tools dependent on point-and-clicking with a mouse in closed source software, to tools based on writing scripts in open source programming languages and making them openly available. We present bibliometric evidence for this change in ecology and in archaeology to test if the adoption of these new tools is revolutionary or transformational. We identify a positive citation effect for papers that use the open source programming language R. We discuss how computational approaches to improving reproducibility and transparency in archaeology are mediated and transformed by the use of R code. We review the transcendental aspects of how adoption of these tools are applicable to a wide range of varying methods, materials, settings or research interests in archaeological science.”

15 May 2020 Society of American Archaeology’s Ethics Survey: Methods of Analysis and Reporting (5:58) This presentation is a brief description of the statistical methods used to analyse the responses to the SAA’s survey about archaeological ethics. It is one of six videos created by members of the Task Force on the Revision of the SAA Principles of Archaeological Ethics: Stage 2 (TF 2).

27 June 2019 Community Data Science meets Digital Heritage: Controversies about World Heritage Sites in the Online Community of Wikipedia (51:13) Closing keynote address given as part of the conference Digital Heritage in a World of Big Data, co-organised by Chiara Bonacchi (University of Stirling), Rodney Harrison (UCL Institute of Archaeology) and Daniel Pett (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University). Co-funded by: AHRC Ancient Identities in Modern Britain and AHRC Heritage Priority Area Leadership Fellowship. The playlist of all presentations at the conference is here.

3 Feb 2017 The Galisonian program, hard cores, and mirror recursion in Archaeological science (1:25:12) A keynote presentation invited by the The Standing Committee on Archaeology of Harvard University for the conference “Critical Perspectives on the Practice of Digital Archaeology”

27 Jan 2017 Practicing Reproducible Research: Four Reflections (6:00) This presentation is a summary of my chapter in the book The Practice of Reproducible Research, and was part of the book launch event at the Berkeley Institute of Data Science