Lecture series on Open Science in Archaeology in Indonesia and the Philippines

Udayana University hosted the OCSEAN Third International Conference in July 2025. As a follow up to this meeting, I Made Agus Julianto from Udayana University invited Toulouse secondee Sébastien Plutniak to continue this discussion by giving a lecture on open science in archaeology.

On Tuesday 10 November, Sébastien presented on “Open-source and Free Software Tools for Archaeology: a State of the Art and a Focus on the archeoViz Ecosystem” to an audience of 110 bachelor students.

After introducing some key notions and tools related with open science, open-archeOcsean catalogue – developed in the context of the OCSEAN project –  was briefly presented, before taking the archeoViz Ecosystem as an example of recent and advanced open science initiative for spatial data in archaeology, aiming at fostering data sharing and making data exploration easier.

Questions from the audience raised issues about the sustainability of digital infrastructures, the insufficient amount of archaeological data openly accessible in the Southeast Asia region, the potential of AI technologies, etc.

Sébastien then continued advocating the Open Science in archeology and introducing the archeoViz Ecosystem on his secondment to the Philippines where he gave two lectures, including one on the pertinent question of programming in archaeology.

Talks on OpenScience and Software Tools for Archaeology given during the secondments to Indonesia and the Philippines during 2025:

• Plutniak S. Open and Reusable Data for Southeast Asia and Oceania Archaeology: Review of Available Resources and Prospects. OCSEAN Bali Conference 2025. 22nd July, 2025, https://www.cirhss.org/program-book/

• Plutniak S. A Map to Navigate the Data Archipelago: the “Open-archeOcsean” Catalogue of Open-source Datasets for Pacific and Southeast Asia Archaeology. Situation, Limits, and Prospects. Computer Applications and Quantitative methods in Archaeology Australasia Conference (online). Oct. 3, 2025, https://au.caa-international.org/2025-conference-schedule/

• Plutniak S. A Forum Discussion on Open Data in Southeast Asian Archaeology: Open-archeOcsean, a Map to Navigate the Data Archipelago. “Asian Prehistory Today: Bridging Science, Heritage and Development” UISPP conference (Salatiga, Indonesia). Oct. 31, 2025, https://uispp2025.uksw.edu/side-events

• Plutniak S. Open-source and Free Software Tools for Archaeology: a State of the Art and a Focus on the archeoViz Ecosystem (Universitas Udayana, Denpasar, Indonesia). Nov. 10, 2025.

• Plutniak S. A Map to Navigate the Data Archipelago: Open-archeOcsean, a

  Curated Online Catalogue of Open resources for Pacific and Southeast Asia Archaeology (Ateneo de Manila, Quezon City, The Philippines, online). Dec. 3, 2025.

• Plutniak S. The Programming Archaeologist: A Brief Overview of Current Uses of Scripting Languages in Archaeology and a Focus on the Open-archeOcsean and archeoViz Initiatives to Foster Open Science Practices. Binalot talks (School of Archaeology, University of the Philippines Diliman, The Philippines). Dec. 4, 2025.