In archaeology, we are accustomed to investing great effort into collecting data from fieldwork, museum collections, and other sources, followed by detailed description, rigorous analysis, and in many cases ending with publication of our findings in short, highly concentrated reports or journal articles. Very often, these publications are all that is visible of this lengthy process, and even then, most of our journal articles are only accessible to scholars at institutions paying subscription fees to the journal publishers. While this traditional model of the archaeological research process has long been effective at generating new knowledge about our past, it is increasingly at odds with current norms of practice in other sciences. Often described as ‘open science’, these new norms include data stewardship instead of data ownership, transparency in the analysis process instead of secrecy, and public involvement instead of exclusion. While the concept of open science is not new in archaeology (e.g., see Lake 2012 and other papers in that volume), a less transparent model often prevails, unfortunately. We believe that there is much to be gained, both for individual researchers and for the discipline, from broader application of open science practices. In this article, we very briefly describe these practices and their benefits to researchers. We introduce the Society of American Archaeology’s Open Science Interest Group (OSIG) as a community to help archaeologists engage in and benefit from open science practices, and describe how it will facilitate the adoption of open science in archaeology.

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Angkor Borei, Cambodia was an important urban center related to the early first millennium C.E. polity known as Funan. Excavations in the protohistoric period Vat Komnou Cemetery site uncovered over 1300 glass and stone beads, which are important material indicators of trade. In this article, we review data from earlier studies and add new previously unpublished data on glass and stone beads from this collection as well as previously unpublished glass compositional analyses from the nearby site of Oc Eo, Vietnam. Examinations of the glass beads highlight the presence of large quantities of high alumina mineral soda glass associated with Sri Lankan or South Indian bead production as well as smaller quantities of other glass types in circulation throughout Southeast Asia. Compositional and morphological studies of agate/carnelian beads show strong affinities with the Indian bead industry, while the garnet beads came from raw material sources in southern India. Overall, Angkor Borei's bead collection shows strong contacts with different regions of South Asia. Comparison with the bead assemblages of other contemporaneous sites demonstrate strong affinities with sites farther inland, such as Phum Snay and Prei Khmeng, Cambodia and Ban Non Wat, Thailand rather than other maritime coastal sites in Southeast Asia. We argue that the stone and glass beads at Angkor Borei are related to intensified interaction with South Asia and that elites at Angkor Borei used these exotic prestige goods to build alliances with sites farther inland forming an intraregional exchange network we call the Mekong Interaction Sphere.

13 Agate and carnelian beads, imported from South Asia, were widely exchanged in Southeast Asia 14 during the Iron Age period (500 BCE -500 CE). Recent studies have identified changes in bead 15types and manufacturing methods over time, as well as evidence for possible local production. In 16 order to understand the broader implications of these developments, geochemical analysis using 17 laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) was undertaken on 18 73 beads from 10 Iron Age sites in Cambodia and Thailand and 64 geologic samples from four 19 sites in India, Iran, and Thailand. The results show that many of the beads were produced from 20 raw material derived from the Deccan Traps, India and that there is not yet strong evidence for 21 bead production using a Southeast Asian source. Secondly, we find that there is not yet clear 22 evidence for a change in the different geologic sources used to produce beads over time. This 23 study adds to the growing body of literature highlighting the utility of LA-ICP-MS in 24 differentiating and assigning provenience to agate/carnelian and other silicates.

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