6 ppl attended

In memoriam

• The SIG noted with great sadness the death of Thomas Rose: https://news.mit.edu/2026/mit-assistant-professor-thomas-rose-archaeometallurgy-expert-dies-0903
• Thomas’ computational archaeology work and projects include:
  • chronoCHRT: https://github.com/archaeothommy/chronochrt
  • ASTR: https://github.com/archaeothommy/ASTR
• Other contributors will continue the work on these projects, as would have been his wish.

CAA2027

• The next CAA conference will take place in Santiago, Chile in May 2027: https://2027.caaconference.org
• The call for papers, posters and workshops is open until October 1 2026: https://2027.caaconference.org/2026/08/31/call-for-papers-posters-and-workshops-open
• At this stage, few SIG members indicated that they are considering to attend.

SIG SSLA Maintainathon 2027

• The SIG discussed organising another SIG SSLA Maintainathon: https://sslarch.github.io/maintainathon
• Possible timing: First or second week of January 2027.
• The event could potentially involve and reach out to additional groups beyond SIG SSLA:
  • The MAIA COST Action (Managing Artificial Intelligence in Archaeology, https://maiacost.eu) may be a network through which to share information about the Maintainathon. Members of MAIA may also be able and willing to contribute AI-related Maintainathon resources.
  • The SIG will prepare an information package that can be shared with relevant groups and communities.
• Suggested activities and topics:
  • Blogging and short “speed blog” posts.
  • Small surveys in and beyond the computational archaeology community.
  • Resources and discussions on AI-related topics.
• Before publicising the event more widely, the Maintainathon website should be reorganised and updated.
• Zack Batist will write a short blog post summarising the current Maintainathon plans.

SIG SSLA blog and communication

• The SIG discussed introducing more regular, short blog posts at https://sslarch.github.io/blog.
• A possible format is “speed blogging”: short posts of approximately ten lines, written collaboratively or quickly around a clearly defined topic.
  • Guidance: https://www.software.ac.uk/guide/speed-blogging-and-tips-writing-speed-blog-post
• Possible approach: Dedicate part of a SIG meeting every two or three months to drafting and publishing a short post.
• Possible blog topics:
  • The Digital Archaeology Map.
  • Funding lists and other useful “lists of lists”.
  • Short presentations of their own projects by SIG SSLA members.
  • Domain-specific languages (DSLs) and their growing relevance across research software (following the SIG SSLA session at CAA2025).
  • Small but useful features of software such as RStudio.
  • Guides to accessing data from particular aggregators, such as Euroevol or HYDE.
  • Web scraping examples and good practice, including the importance of checking robots.txt (example: https://lsteinmann.github.io/update/webscraping-packhum-inscriptions).
• The SIG also discussed its social-media communication:
  • Existing guidelines: https://sslarch.github.io/documents/twitter_guidelines
  • Possible use of automated Mastodon/toot actions.
  • The SIG should improve and more actively maintain responses to questions and interactions on social media.

Other discussion topics

• Funding, sustainability, and community building:
  • Centre for Archaeological Synthesis design grants: https://www.archsynth.org/cfas-design-grants
  • The “bus factor” of research software projects.
  • Long-term sustainability.
  • Community building around software, data, and digital infrastructure.
• Publications and resources:
  • “Detecting temporal relations in archaeology: model and algorithms” by Eythan Levy, recommended by Clemens Schmid: https://archaeo.peercommunityin.org/PCIArchaeology/articles/rec?id=618
  • The SIG appreciated both the manuscript and the system presented.
  • Eythan later published the paper in the Peer Community Journal: https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.761
  • Other PCI-friendly journals: https://archaeo.peercommunityin.org/PCIArchaeology/about/pci_friendly_journals
• Elixir Tempo: Software library to represent and operate on time spans for the functional programming language elixir: https://github.com/elixir-tempo
• OCHRE database by Sandy and David Schloen at the University of Chicago:
  • OCHRE database: https://voices.uchicago.edu/ochre/database
  • OCHRE technical details: https://sites.google.com/view/ochrewiki/updates/technical

Next SIG Meeting: Friday, October 2, 2026