Open Science, that is, the trio of open access, open data, and open methods, is not a new concept in the scientific world. Despite the fact that Budapest Open Access Initiative is more than 15 years old and the level of openness among researchers rises continually, there is still a long way before open science becomes so ubiquitous we simply call it “science”.

A significant step for humanities, a discipline not commonly associated with rigorous scientific methods, is the creation of the Open Science Interest Group (OSIG) within the largest archaeological community of the Society for American Archaeology. In the recently published manifesto, Ben Marwick, the group creator, argues that an adoption of practices preached by the open science movement can significantly benefit individual scholars as well as the discipline as a whole. At first, the Interest Group will focus on "incentivizing open practices by issuing Center for Open Science (COS) badges for Open Data and Open Materials for display on qualifying posters and slide presentations at the SAA Annual Meeting and other professional venue" and "conduct workshops using Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry pedagogy and materials".

Archaeologists interested in supporting the Society for American Archaeology Open Science Interest Group are welcome to subscribe to their e-mail list.