Ben Marwick

Why do societies reliably develop strikingly similar traditions like dance songs, hero stories, shamanism & justice institutions?

In a new BBS target article, I propose a theory for such "super-attractors" + cultural evolution more broadly. Now open for commentary: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Co-organizing a session at #SAA San Francisco with T. Kovach: "Toward an Integration of Quantitative Approaches in #Lithic Analysis." A few spots still open! Abstracts due Sept. 4.

Email me if you’d like to join the conversation: armando.falcucci@nyu.edu

#Archaeology #FlintFriday #FossilFriday 🏺

Here's said mascot along with an excellent checklist by @shreyadimri.bsky.social

🎉New preprint!

"TADA! Simple guidelines to improve code sharing"

tinyurl.com/8rmnwjrk

We present simple guidelines to help researchers of all coding levels improve the transparency and reproducibility of their analytical code, TADA!

Transferable, Accessible, Documented, Annotated.

All data and code available on zenodo (doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) and on my GitHub account. #opendata
Thanks @benmarwick.bsky.social ‬for the possibility to learn from reproducing your work and for providing the basis for this replication, which are unfortunately excessively rare in #Archaeology!

Boxplots comparing data for top-25 journal metrics and data from Fanelli & Glanzel 2013 for Physics, Social Sciences and Humanities. Most of the time Archaeology fits pretty close to Social Sciences, except for Diversity of sources where it harder than Physics.

New #preprint online: Reproduction and replication of @benmarwick.bsky.social (2025), with data from OpenAlex.

Accessible as interactive html version: aqueff.github.io/replication_...

and more traditional manuscript with doi here: doi.org/10.31235/osf...

Is archaeology a hard or soft science? 🏺🧪

Yes, you can see some of the most recent debate on this question in the comments where I shared the paper here: www.reddit.com/r/Archaeolog...

Checklist of items researchers can do to improve the reproducibility of their code

Here is my checklist summarising a small set of some of the simplest tasks you can do that have high potential to improve the reproducibility of your analysis code.

This is based on my year of reproducibility reviews for the J. of Archaeological Science:

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lHjN_6yUM... 🧪🏺

Statistical modelling in archaeology: some recent trends and future perspectives This paper reviews the application of statistical models in archaeology in the last decade, focusing in particular on multilevel models, statistical t…

I'm happy to share this review article, where I attempt to ponder about missed opportunities in archaeological statistical modelling.

First page of the journal article

Fig 1 boxplot

Fig 2 scatter plot panel

Fig 3 ridgeplot panel

Is archaeology a science? 🧪

Here's my new paper that has a go at answering this question by analysing 10,000 journal articles:

authors.elsevier.com/a/1lHjN_6yUM...

🚨 Big milestone for Rdatasets 🚨

The web archive now hosts 3400+ free and documented CSV datasets. Fantastic for teaching and testing!

And {Rdatasets} is a new #RStats 📦 for easy download and search

Web archive: vincentarelbundock.github.io/Rdatasets

R 📦: vincentarelbundock.github.io/Rdatasetspkg

It's CES election time! We have FOUR positions that have come up for renewal, so please consider nominating yourself or your colleagues. Nominations close June 20th, with voting from June 30th -July 4th.

Very excited to be working with Angie Reed + the Tribal Exchange Network (www.tribalexchangenetwork.org) on a revival of {redoc}, an #rstats pkg enabling collaboration on reproducible reports. Thanks to the R Consortium and congrats to the other grant winners! r-consortium.org/posts/r-cons...

Lithic miniaturization in South China since the terminal Pleistocene: A multivariate analysis of lithic reduction from Fodongdi, Fulin and Xiqiaoshan - Journal of Geographical Sciences Lithic miniaturization is a key adaptive and technological feature of human populations and one of the key cultural hallmarks in the Late Pleistocene of Eastern Asia. In northern China this form of st...

Paper alert! Happy to have joined Huan et al. to examine miniaturised lithic diversity across the last 20,000 years in southern China and its potential relation to geographic and climatic variability. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

There are lots of benefits of releasing code alongside scientific publications - when you do, you might want to consider your code's "Reporting, Running, Reliability, Reproducibility, Robustness, Readability, and Release."

As long as social science journals don’t implement actual code review — not just mechanical reproducibility checks — there’s no good way to ward off such errors or abuse. Not every publication has a shocking result begging for a replication, like the one flagged by @johannarickne.bsky.social.

Thank you for your important work! It is crystal clear that code and data publication alongside each manuscript is the only way forward for science. Manuscripts with data analyses that do not publish code and data should not be accepted for publication anymore.

Banner for American Antiquity promoting Research Transparency & Reproducibility, featuring an image of individuals conducting an archaeological excavation.

SAA journal #AmericanAntiquity is advancing #researchtransparency in #publishing. Read how, alongside an introduction to Associate Editor for #Reproducibility, Dr. Alan Farahani.

Approach: ▶️ cup.org/4hFclo5
Editorial: ▶️ cup.org/41AHuDk

#Archaeology #SAA2025Denver

Which programming language should I use? A guide for early-career researchers Computer scientists and bioinformaticians address four key questions to help rookie coders to make the right choice.

Computer scientists and bioinformaticians address four key questions to help rookie coders to make the right choice

https://go.nature.com/42UuoT3

position_jitter()

position_jitter_ellipse()

position_sunflower()

position_circlepack()

New visualization tool alert!

The vayr package version 1.0.0 is now on CRAN.

It contains position adjustments for ggplot2 that help with overplotting in pleasing ways. My favorite is position_sunflower().

- install.packages("vayr")
- alexandercoppock.com/vayr

#rstats #ggplot2 #dataviz

Ten principles for reliable, efficient, and adaptable coding in psychology and cognitive neuroscience - Communications Psychology Programming is essential for modern research in neuroscience and psychology, but it can quickly become a source of frustration and error. This Primer introduces ten practical principles guiding resear...

Proud to announce our primer on "Ten principles for reliable, efficient, and adaptable coding in psychology and cognitive neuroscience"

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

This primer is for beginners to get started, advanced programmers to improve, and PIs.

#psychology #psychsci #cogsci #neuroskyence

Ten principles for reliable, efficient, and adaptable coding in psychology and cognitive neuroscience - Communications Psychology Programming is essential for modern research in neuroscience and psychology, but it can quickly become a source of frustration and error. This Primer introduces ten practical principles guiding resear...

Many processes from industry are not appropriate or overkill for an academic setting, but we can and should be doing better than we currently are.

Our paper tries to give practical advice on how you can improve your scientific workflow, without being a coding guru.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

I am thrilled to share my paper on statistical training in archaeology. Thank you to @kjkillackey.bsky.social for the incredible illustration in the graphical abstract. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

screenshot of a page of the Checklist for Code and Data Supplements from the Biometrical Journal

screenshot of a page of the Checklist for Code and Data Supplements from the Biometrical Journal

screenshot of a page of the Checklist for Code and Data Supplements from the Biometrical Journal

screenshot of a page of the Checklist for Code and Data Supplements from the Biometrical Journal

Here is an excellent checklist for reproducible research, this is from the Biometrical Journal, but is relevant for computational scientists in all fields:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal...

Lots of best practices and specific tips for increasing the quality, usefulness & impact of papers

🧪

Ilya Tëmkin and Niles Eldredge’s (2007) depiction of the evolution of cornet designs. Vertical lines represent design lifespans, and horizontal lines denote vertical transfer between designs. Curved red lines indicate horizontal influence between designs, which becomes more prevalent in later periods. The phylogeny is reconstructed using morphological traits, revealing two main epochs, which represent the Stölzel (shaded left) and the Périnet valve systems (right). The markings (filled circles) point to key innovations such as valve number (violet), second valve slide shift (blue), bell exit position (green), and shape modification (yellow). (Full-color figure available in electronic version)

Phylogenetic tree of 41 classes of projectile points from the eastern United States, with clades shown in different colors (from O’Brien et al. 2014a, b). Roman numerals denote characters (traits), and subscript numbers denote character states. Open boxes indicate homologous changes (the result of shared ancestry); shaded boxes indicate parallel or convergent changes; and half-shaded boxes indicate characters that reverted to an ancestral state

Archaeology and the Construction of Artifact Lineages:
From Culture History to Phylogenetics 🏺🧪
Michael O’Brien, @svalver.bsky.social et al
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Agrees with @nilese.bsky.social but documenting of (pre)history is only 1st step facing paleobiologists and archaeologists.

Here is our plain English summary of our new discovery of Middle Palaeolithic stone tools in East Asia:

theconversation.com/stone-tool-d...

published today in @us.theconversation.com 🧪

front page of the article

Figure. 3 from the article showing products of the Quina system at the Longtan site

Figure 4 from the article showing features of Quina products compared to ordinary scrapers.

Figures showing the site location and stratigraphy

Our new paper reports a complete Quina technological system in the 60-50 ka assemblage at Longtan, Southwest China

Ruan, Q. et al. (2025) Quina lithic technology indicates diverse Late Pleistocene human dynamics in East Asia doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

🆓 faculty.washington.edu/bmarwick/PDF...

Finally out!! Check our paper on Middle Paleolithic Quina technology in south China, Just published in PNAS!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Our new paper on 3D GM has all the models and script available for others to apply our method. We use it to demonstrate interregional variability of Nubian Levallois cores but it has broader potential for lithic studies #openscience #archaeology #3DGM @icarehb.bsky.social @jmcascalheira.bsky.social