Archaeology in OCSEAN's Perspective: Introducing the open-archeOcsean Catalogue of Open-source Archaeological Data Sets

Open data in  Archaeology

In its quest at integrating linguistics, genetics, and archaeological observation in a single analytical framework, the OCSEAN project is facing a major challenge: the non-standardized, poorly available, and sparse nature of archaeological data. 

This problem is not new. All along the development of archaeology as a scientific discipline, multiple calls were stated in favour of openly sharing structured and reusable data: from, among many others, Jean-Claude Gardin's 1955 “Problems of Documentation” paper to more recent statements by Charles Perrault in his The Quality of the Archaeological Record book: 

Searching for macroscale principles will require archaeologists to change the way they do things. A large global database of cultural traditions, similar to paleontology’s Paleobiology Database, will need to be assembled before patterns and trends in cultural diversity can be detected in the archaeological record. (Perreault 2019, p. 192.)

In this regard, a structured and explicit movement aiming at fostering open science practices has been ongoing in science for about two decades. Archaeology, among other disciplines, is involved. Many actors and institutions are committed to fostering sharing practices regarding reusable data and reproducible methods and workflows. If some initiatives reference existing resources on particular regions, as the Ariadne Portal for Europe, arkeogis for France, tDAR for the USA, ADS for the UK, DANS for the Netherlands, etc. However, regarding the Southeast Asia and Pacific areas – on which the OCSEAN project is focusing – no similar repositories is available.

open-archeOcsean: an Online Catalogue for Open Archaeological Data in the Pacific  

To fill this void open-archeOcsean has been developed. An interactive online catalogue, it references open source data sets relevant to  archaeological studies in the Southeast Asia and Pacific regions and makes it possible browsing it using multiple criteria, including: publication licence, 5-stars score, category of archaeological material, measurement or descriptive methods, publication and last update dates, etc.

Being itself published under an open-source licence, open-archeOcsean code is available on github. Accordingly, its development can be continued as a collective endeavour, within and beyond the OCSEAN community, all contribution being welcome.

For more information, access the slides of the “Open and Reusable Data for Southeast Asia and Oceania Archaeology: Review of Available Resources and Prospects" given at the OCSEAN Bali Conference 2025.

Other presentations and events related to Open-archeOcsean:

UISPP 2025 ASIAN PREHISTORY TODAY: Bridging Science, Heritage and Development

Salatiga, Sangiran, Yogyakarta (Indonesia)

October 27th to November 6th, 2025

Side-event November 1st 2025: OPEN- archeOcsean: Forum Discussion on Open Data in Southeast Asia Archaeology

Computer Applications and Quantitative methods in Archaeology Australasia Conference

October 3d, 2025

Title:  "Map to Navigate the Data Archipelago: the “Open-archeOcsean” Catalogue of Open-source Datasets for Pacific and Southeast Asia Archaeology. Situation, Limits, and Prospects"

References:

Perreault C. 2019. The Quality of the Archaeological Record. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press.

Gardin J-C. Problems of Documentation. Diogenes. 1955;3(11):85-101. doi:10.1177/039219215500301106