R is for Archaeology: A report on the 2017 Society of American Archaeology meeting

Introduction by OpenMethods Editor (Delphine Montoliu): The 2017 SAA conference highlights the R language for archeological research as tool of choice.

The Society of American Archaeology (SAA) is one of the largest professional organisations for archaeologists in the world, and just concluded its annual meeting in Vancouver, BC at the end of March. The R language has been a part of this meeting for more than a decade, with occasional citations of R Core in the posters, and more recently, the distinctive ggplot2 graphics appearing infrequently on posters and slides. However, among the few archaeologists that have heard of R, it has a reputation for being difficult to learn and use, idiosyncratic, and only suitable for highly specialized analyses. Generally, archaeology students are raised on Excel and SPSS. This year, a few of us thought it was time to administer some first aid to R’s reputation among archaeologists and generally broaden awareness of this wonderful tool.

Original publication date: 11/04/2017.

Source: R is for Archaeology: A report on the 2017 Society of American Archaeology meeting, by B Marwick