The production of texts in archaeology is vast and multiple in nature, and the archaeologist often misses the true extent of its scope. Machine learning and deep learning have a top place to play in these analyses (Bellat et al 2025), with text extraction methods being therefore a useful tool for reducing complexity and, more specifically, for uncovering elements that may be lost in the midst of so much literary production. This is what Van den Dikkenberg and Brandsen set out to do in the specific case of Vlaardingen Culture (3400-2500 BCE). By using NER (Named Entity Recognition) with BERT (Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers) they were able to recover data related to the location of sites, the relevance of the data and, just as importantly, potential errors and failures in interpretation (Van den Dikkenberg and Brandsen 2025). The contextual aspect is emphasized here by the authors, and is one of the main reasons why BERT is used, which is logically a wake-up call for the future: it is not enough to classify or represent data, it is essential to understand what surrounds it, its contexts and its particularities (Brandsen et al 2022). 

For this, refinement is always advocated, as these models need constant attention in terms of both training data and parameters. This constant search means that this article is not simply an analysis, but that it can be a relevant contribution both to the culture in question and to the way in which we approach and extract relevant information about the grey literature that archaeology produces. Thus, Van den Dikkenberg and Brandsen present us with an article that is eminently practical but which considers the theoretical implications of this automation of the search for the contexts of archaeological data, which reinforces its relevance and, consequently, its recommendation.

References

Bellat, M., Orellana Figueroa, J. D., Reeves, J. S., Taghizadeh-Mehrjardi, R., Tennie, C. & Scholten, T. (2025). Machine learning applications in archaeological practices: A review. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2501.03840

Brandsen, A., Verberne, S., Lambers, K. & Wansleeben, M. (2022). Can BERT dig it? Named entity recognition for information retrieval in the archaeology domain. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 15(3), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3497842

Van den Dikkenberg, L. & Brandsen, A. (2025). Using Text Mining to Search for Neolithic Vlaardingen Culture Sites in the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt Delta. Zenodo. v2 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community In Archaeology https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14763691

This article by L. Doyon et al. [1] represents an important step to the recognition of bone expedient tools within archaeological faunal assemblages, and therefore deserves publication.

In this work, the authors compare bone flakes and splinters experimentally obtained by percussion (hammerstone and anvil technique) with fossil ones coming from the Palaeolithic site of Lingjing in China. Their aim is to find some particularities to help distinguish the fossil bone fragments which were intentionally shaped, from others that result notably from marrow extraction. The presence of numerous (>6) contiguous flake scars and of a continuous size gradient between the lithics and the bone blanks used, appear to be two valuable criteria for identifying 56 bone elements of Lingjing as expedient bone tools. The latter are present alongside other bone tools used as retouchers [2].

Another important point underlined by this study is the co-occurrence of impact and flake scars among the experimentally broken specimens (~90%), while this association is seldom observed on archaeological ones. Thus, according to the authors, a low percentage of that co-occurrence could be also considered as a good indicator of the presence of intentionally shaped bone blanks.

About the function of these expedient bone tools, the authors hypothesize that they were used for in situ butchering activities. However, future experimental investigations on this question of the function of these tools are expected, including an experimental use wear program.

Finally, highlighting the presence of such a bone industry is of importance for a better understanding of the adaptive capacities and cultural practices of the past hominins. This work therefore invites all taphonomists to pay more attention to flake removal scars on bone elements, keeping in mind the possible existence of that type of bone tools. In fact, being able to distinguish between bone fragments due to marrow recovery and bone tools is still a persistent and important issue for all of us, but one that deserves great caution.

[1] Doyon, L., Li, Z., Wang, H., Geis, L. and d'Errico, F. 2021. A 115,000-year-old expedient bone technology at Lingjing, Henan, China. Socarxiv, 68xpz, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/68xpz

[2] Doyon, L., Li, Z., Li, H., and d’Errico, F. 2018. Discovery of circa 115,000-year-old bone retouchers at Lingjing, Henan, China. Plos one, 13(3), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0194318.

The paper (Callieri, M. et al. 2023) describes the “Dynamic Collections” project, an online platform initially created to showcase digital archaeological collections of Lund University. During a phase of testing by department members, new functionalities and artefacts were added resulting in an interactive platform adapted to university-level teaching and learning. The paper introduces into the topic and related works after which it starts to explain the project itself. The idea is to resemble the possibilities of interaction of non-digital collections in an online platform. Besides the objects themselves, the online platform offers annotations, measurement and other interactive tools based on the already known 3DHOP framework. With the possibility to create custom online collections a collaborative working/teaching environment can be created.

The already wide-spread use of the 3DHOP framework enabled the authors to develop some functionalities that could be used in the “Dynamic Collections” project. Also, current and future plans of the project are discussed and will include multiple 3D models for one object or permanent identifiers, which are both important additions to the system. The paper then continues to explain some of its further planned improvements, like comparisons and support for teaching, which will make the tool an important asset for future university-level education.

The paper in general is well-written and informative and introduces into the interactive tool, that is already available and working. It is very positive, that the authors rely on up-to-date methodologies in creating 3D online repositories and are in fact improving them by testing the tool in a teaching environment. They mention several times the alignment with upcoming EU efforts related to the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH), which is anticipatory and far-sighted and adds to the longevity of the project. Comments of the reviewers were reasonably implemented and led to a clearer and more concise paper. I am very confident that this tool will find good use in heritage research and presentation as well as in university-level teaching and learning.

Although the authors never answer the introductory question explicitly (What characteristics should a virtual environment have in order to trigger dynamic interaction?), the paper gives the implicit answer by showing what the "Dynamic Collections" project has achieved and is able to achieve in the future.

Bibliography

Callieri, M., Berggren, Å., Dell'Unto, N., Derudas, P., Dininno, D., Ekengren, F., and Naponiello, G. (2023). The Dynamic Collections – a 3D Web Platform of Archaeological Artefacts designed for Data Reuse and Deep Interaction, Zenodo, 10067103, ver. 3 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10067103

Silica coating developed in cave art walls had an impact in the preservation of the paintings themselves. Despite it still exists a controversy about whether or not the effects contribute to the preservation of the artworks; it is evident that identifying these silica coatings would have an impact to assess the taphonomy of the walls and the paintings preserved on them. Unfortunately, current techniques -especially non-invasive ones- can hardly address amorphous silica characterisation. Thus, its presence is often detected on laboratory observations such as SEM or XRD analyses. In the paper “Light in the Cave: Opal coating detection by UV-light illumination and fluorescence in a rock art context - Methodological development and application in Points Cave (Gard, France)”, Quiers and collaborators propose a new method for the in situ detection and characterisation of amorphous silica in a rock art context based on UV laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and UV illumination [1].

The results from both methods presented by the authors are convincing for the detection of U-silica mineralisation (U-opal in the specific case of study presented). This would allow access to a fast and cheap method to identify this kind of formations in situ in decorated caves. Beyond the relationship between opal coating and the preservation of the rock art, the detection of silica mineralisation can have further implications. First, it can help to define spot for sampling for pigment compositions, as well as reconstruct the chronology of the natural history of the caves and its relation with the human frequentation and activities. In conclusion, I am glad to recommend this original research, which offers a new approach to the identification of geological processes that affect -and can be linked with- the Palaeolithic cave art.

[1] Quiers, M., Chanteraud, C., Maris-Froelich, A., Chalmin-Aljanabi, E., Jaillet, S., Noûs, C., Pairis, S., Perrette, Y., Salomon, H., Monney, J. (2022) Light in the Cave: Opal coating detection by UV-light illumination and fluorescence in a rock art context. Methodological development and application in Points Cave (Gard, France). HAL, hal-03383193, ver. 5 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer community in Archaeology. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03383193v5

“On the Physics and Metaphysics of Classification in Archaeology” by M. Okumura and A.G.M. Araujo (1) is a welcome contribution to our upcoming edited volume on type-thinking and the uses and misuses of archaeological typologies. Questions of type-delineation and classification of archaeological materials have recently re-emerged as key arenas of scholarly attention and interrogation (2–4), as many researchers have turned to a matured field of cultural evolutionary studies (5–7) and as fine-grained archaeological data and novel computational-quantitative methods have becomes increasingly available in recent years (8, 9). Re-assessing the utility and significance of traditional archaeological types has also become pertinent as macro-scale approaches to the past have grown progressive to the centre of the discipline (10, 11), promising not only to ‘re-do’ typology ‘from the ground up’, but also to put types and typological systems to novel and powerful use, and in the process illuminate the many understudied large-scale dynamics of human cultural evolution which are so critical to understanding our species’ venture on this planet. As such, the promise is colossal yet it requires a solid analytical base, as many have insisted (e.g., 12). Types are often identified as such foundational analytical units, and much therefore hinges on the robust identification and differentiation of types within the archaeological record. Typo-praxis – the practice of delineating and constructing types and to harness them to learn about the archaeological record – is therefore also increasingly seen as a key ingredient of what Hussain and Soressi (13) have dubbed the ‘basic science’ claim of lithic research within human origins or broader (deep-time) evolutionary studies.

The stakes are accordingly incredibly high, yet as Okumura and Araujo point out there is still no need to ‘re-invent the wheel’ as there is a rich literature on classification and systematics in the biological sciences, from which archaeologists can draw and benefit. Some of this literature was indeed already referenced by some archaeologists between the 1960s and early 2000s when first attempts were undertaken to integrate Darwinian evolutionary theory into processual archaeological practice (14, 15). It may be argued that much of this literature and its insights – including its many conceptual and terminological clarifications – have been forgotten or sidelined in archaeology primarily because the field has witnessed a pronounced ‘cultural turn’ beginning in the early 2000s, with even processualists expanding their research portfolio to include what was previously considered post-processual terrain (16, 17). Michelle Hegmon’s (16) ‘processualism plus’ was perhaps the most emphatic expression of this trajectory within the influential Anglo-American segments of the profession. Okumura and Araujo are therefore to be applauded for their attempt to draw attention again to this literature in an effort to re-activate it for contemporary research efforts at the intersection of cultural evolutionary and computational archaeology. Decisions need to be made on the way, of course, and the authors defend a theory-guided (and largely theory-driven) approach, for example insisting on the importance of understanding the metaphysical status of types as arbitrary kinds. Their chapter is hence also a contribution (some may say intervention) to the long-standing tension between the tyranny of data vs. the tyranny of theory in type-construction. They clearly take side with those who argue that typo-praxis cannot evade its metaphysical nature – i.e., it will always be concerned (to some extent at least) with uncovering basic metaphysical principles of the world, even if the link between types and world is not understood as a simple mapping function. Carving the investigated archaeological realities ‘at their joints’ remains an overarching ambition from this perspective. Following Okumura and Araujo, archaeologists interested in these matters therefore cannot avoid to become part-time metaphysicians.

Okumura and Araujo’s contribution is timely and it brings key issues of debate to archaeological attention, and many of these issues tellingly overlap substantially with foundational debates in the philosophy of science (e.g. monism vs. pluralism, essentialism vs. functionalism, and so forth). Their chapter also showcases how critical (both in an enabling and limiting way) biological metaphors such as ‘species’ are (see esp. the discussion of ‘species as sets’ vs. ‘species as individuals’) for their and cognate projects. Whether such metaphors are justified in the context of human action is a longstanding point of contention, and other archaeologies – for example those with decidedly relational, ontological, and post-humanist aspirations – have developed very different optics (see e.g. 18, esp. Chapter 6). This being said, Okumura and Araujo’s contribution will be essential for those interested in (re-)learning about the ‘physics and metaphysics’ of archaeological classification and their chapter will be an excellent place to start with such engagement.

References

1. M. Okumura and A. G. M. Araujo (2024) The Physics and Metaphysics of Classification in Archaeology. Zenodo, ver.3 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Archaeology https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7515797

2. F. Riede (2017) “The ‘Bromme problem’ – notes on understanding the Federmessergruppen and Bromme culture occupation in southern Scandinavia during the Allerød and early Younger Dryas chronozones” in Problems in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Research, pp. 61–85.

3. N. Reynolds and F. Riede (2019) House of cards: cultural taxonomy and the study of the European Upper Palaeolithic. Antiquity 93, 1350–1358. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.49 

4. R. L. Lyman  (2021) On the Importance of Systematics to Archaeological Research: the Covariation of Typological Diversity and Morphological Disparity. J Paleo Arch 4, 3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-021-00077-6

5.  A. Mesoudi (2011) Cultural Evolution: How Darwinian Theory Can Explain Human Culture and Synthesize the Social Sciences, University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226520452

6. N. Creanza, O. Kolodny and M. W. Feldman (2017) Cultural evolutionary theory: How culture evolves and why it matters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, 7782–7789. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1620732114

7. R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson (2024) Cultural evolution: Where we have been and where we are going (maybe). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121, e2322879121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2322879121

8. F. Riede, D. N. Matzig, M. Biard, P. Crombé, J. F.-L. de Pablo, F. Fontana, D. Groß, T. Hess, M. Langlais, L. Mevel, W. Mills, M. Moník, N. Naudinot, C. Posch, T. Rimkus, D. Stefański, H. Vandendriessche and S. T. Hussain (2024) A quantitative analysis of Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic cultural taxonomy and evolution in Europe. PLOS ONE 19, e0299512, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299512

9. L. Fogarty, A. Kandler, N. Creanza and M. W. Feldman (2024) Half a century of quantitative cultural evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 121, e2418106121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2418106121

10. A. M. Prentiss, M. J. Walsh, E. Gjesfjeld, M. Denis and T. A. Foor (2022) Cultural macroevolution in the middle to late Holocene Arctic of east Siberia and north America. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 65, 101388. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101388

11. C. Perreault (2023) Guest Editorial. Antiquity 97, 1369–1380.

12. F. Riede, C. Hoggard and S. Shennan (2019) Reconciling material cultures in archaeology with genetic data requires robust cultural evolutionary taxonomies. Palgrave Commun 5, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0260-7

13. S. T. Hussain and M. Soressi (2021) The Technological Condition of Human Evolution: Lithic Studies as Basic Science. J Paleo Arch 4, 25. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-021-00098-1

14. R. C. Dunnell (1978) Style and Function: A Fundamental Dichotomy. American Antiquity 43, 192–202.

15. R. C. Dunnell (2002) Systematics in Prehistory, Illustrated Edition, The Blackburn Press.

16. M. Hegmon (2003) Setting Theoretical Egos Aside: Issues and Theory in North American Archaeology. American Antiquity 68, 213–243. https://doi.org/10.2307/3557078

17. R. Torrence (2001) “Hunter-gatherer technology: macro- and microscale approaches” in Hunter-Gatherers: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, Cambridge University Press.

18. C. N. Cipolla, R. Crellin and O. J. T. Harris (2024) Archaeology for today and tomorrow, Routledge.