Simon Wyatt-Spratt

Scoop: After Australia ruled out an AI copyright exception, the business lobby had a new plan: bypass the copyright system.

A leaked Business Council of Australia doc shows it considered, then ditched, a push to let AI companies train on Australia data without paying.

www.crikey.com.au/20...

The network schema of the Big Exchange Heterogeneous Information Network (HIN) from the paper: A Network View on the Big Exchange Project: Integrating and Analysing Heterogeneous Datasets. Full description available at the link.

New paper out in JCAA! thor Straten, M, Strohm, S, Hilpert, J, Serbe, B, Kerig, T and Renz, M. 2026. A Network View on the Big Exchange Project: Integrating and Analysing Heterogeneous Datasets. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 9(1): 31–42. DOI: doi.org/10.5334/jcaa...

Program – CAA 2026

The #CAA2026 program, schedule, and abstract booklet have all been published! You can access them all here: 2026.caaconference.org/program/

CAA is seeking two new members of the Scientific Committee. Elected members serve a 3-year term that is renewable once. The key roles of the scientific committee are to manage the process of soliciting and accepting sessions, papers, and posters to be presented at the conference.

If interested, please send a short statement of interest and your CV to Eythan Levy at scicomm_chair [at] caainternational [dot] org by 20 March.

‘Complete joke’: Efforts to reduce funding wait times ends with longer blowout A long campaign to improve Australia’s sclerotic research bureaucracy has culminated in an extraordinary blowout to grant approval times, leaving scientists despondent.

“A complete joke”

After the starting gun fires, Australian researchers have to wait 2–3 years before even starting the race.

Really clear article explaining the impossibly long new time-frames for Australian Research Council grants.

By @liammannix.bsky.social

Excellent FOI-based investigative report by Bianca Hall confirms that if you're WoodCIDE & persistently throw hissy fits about the "approval conditions" of your climate-destroying Gas project to 2070, the @albomp.bsky.social WILL capitulate AND obediently get on board w your media statement too

🧪🏺 Seen a few cases of gen- #AI art creeping into #archaeology & #HumanOrigins publications recently, this is not a trend we should engage in or simply accept...

sciencepress.mnhn.fr/sites/defaul...

Figure from a journal article titled “Cultural learning with 3D objects: First Nations perspectives in commercial archaeology.” Below the title, a figure shows a 3D model of a culturally modified tree surrounded by multiple floating camera images in Agisoft Metashape.

A new study explores 3D imaging with the Wiradjuri Nation (Murrumbidgee Region, NSW), showing its value for culturally sensitive heritage management and learning.
Find the article in Australian Archaeology: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A worked flint tool in the palm of a person’s hand

For #FindsFriday, we’re hearing from Shannon, National Trust National Archaeologist, on one of her favourite finds:

“As part of a community engagement project in 2024, we excavated some test pits near Reach in Cambridgeshire to test the potential buried deposits."

Registration – CAA 2026

Early bird registration for #CAA2026 is closing on 25 February! Register at the link: 2026.caaconference.org/registration...

A screenshot of one of the publications referenced in the CAA proceedings: "An Experiment in the Use of a Computer for On-Site Recording of Finds"

All of the publications in the @caaint.bsky.social's first proceedings in 1973 have direct modern analogs and a lot of the problems raised still haven't been solved.

proceedings.caaconference.org/paper/03_buc...

Anyway, continue with your day

Breaking Ground: Women in Archaeology This enlightening conversation will examine the significant role played by women in the development of archaeology as a field in Australia

The Museum of Sydney is celebrating International Women’s Day with "Breaking Ground: Women in Archaeology" to examine the significant role played by women in the development of archaeology as a field in Australia - Thursday 5 March 6pm–7pm #ozarch mhnsw.au/whats-on/eve... /em

How the hell is Angus Taylor still a thing? - The Shot Angus Taylor a walking Venn Diagram intersection of fossil fuel fervour and cash for the boys.

As it appears enough of the Liberals will sufficiently succumb to madness to endorse him as their next hapless leader, here's a piece I wrote way back in 2021 about the many and varied and still unexplained controversies that have swirled around Angus Taylor.

theshot.net.au/news/opinion...

Grad-CAM, Guided Backpropagation, and Guided Grad-CAM applied on the trained model without the background class.

New paper! Kayıkcı, D, Berganzo-Besga, I and Barceló, JA. 2026. Archaeological Classification of Small Datasets Using Meta- and Transfer Learning Methods: A Case Study on Hittite Stele Fragments. Journal of Computer Applications in Archaeology, 9(1): 1–30. DOI: doi.org/10.5334/jcaa... #JCAA #OA

We're still looking for new potential board members for the 3D Analysis SIG. Deadline for submissions is February 16th! #CAA2026 #archaeology #3D 🏺

RE: https://archaeo.social/@CAA_SSLA/115881087318544124

👾 For those who might have missed it, earlier this month we organized the inaugural Digital Archaeology Maintainathon --- an opportunity to clean, document and revise older code together. We wrote a brief summary of the event here […]

Our volume on Stone Age clothing is now online and completely open access:

Jöris, O., Dietrich, O., Risch, R., & Meller, H. (Hrsg.). (2026). A Stone Age History of Clothing: Mitteldeutscher Archäologentag vom 26. bis 28. September 2024 in Halle (Saale).

doi.org/10.11588/pro...

Registration – CAA 2026

Registration is now open for #CAA2026! Come join us in Vienna, 31 March - 4 April. Early bird registration closes on 25 Feb so don't miss out! 2026.caaconference.org/registration...

A little stop motion video I made of an almanac in the University of Rochester collection to try and give viewers an idea of how it functions 😊

(Video of RCL cod. a.1, a late 14th century folding almanac from England, likely Oxford)

🚨 ONLY 9 DAYS LEFT TO APPLY! 🚨
🎓 ACADEMIC POSITION: Full-time Professor in Prehistoric Art & Archaeology
📍 University of Liège, Belgium
📅 Start: Sept 1, 2026
⏰ DEADLINE: Jan 29, 2026
Tenure-track | Teaching + Research + Fieldwork
Apply NOW: my.uliege.be/portail/go_x...
🧵⬇️

Post Doctoral Fellow in Paleolithic Technology Laboratory at Emory University faculty-emory.icims.com/jobs/158147/...

‘Unfathomable loss’: University of Melbourne’s vice chancellor dies at 52 Professor Emma Johnston, the University of Melbourne’s first female vice chancellor, has died less than 12 months after taking the role.

Oh Jesus. Emma Johnston has passed away.

I never had the pleasure of meeting her but by all accounts she was a wonderful person. Barely 50, too. 🙁

Hidden in plain sight: Did archaeologists really overlook evidence for early writing at Göbekli Tepe?! When Irving Finkel, esteemed Assyriologist and Assistant Keeper of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures at the British Museum, who’s always good for some really great public ou…

Did a small stone from #GöbekliTepe represent the very beginnings of #writing? Did archaeologists really overlook such an important find all this time? - Spoiler: No, it doesn’t. And we didn’t.

On Irving Finkel's "controversial theory" at @lexfridman.bsky.social:

trowelandpen.com/2025/12/22/h...

*Atlas of the Munsell Color System* (1915) Munsell envisioned his atlas as a system akin to musical notation, which would liberate visual description from commercially-driven colour names.

Archaeologists use Munsell books to describe soil colour all the time. I never thought to dig deeper into this colour system!
🧪 🏺

2026 Colloquium - Victorian Archaeology Colloquium The Victorian Archaeology Colloquium is a one-day gathering that brings together archaeologists, heritage practitioners, Traditional Custodians, academics, and students for an informal discussion of…

Please be aware that the abstract submission deadline for the 2026 Victorian Archaeology Colloquium has been extended to 5pm ADST this Thursday 18 December. For more information and to submit your abstract head to
victorianarchaeologycolloquium.com/nextcolloqui... /em

The Nationals and expanding the parliament Recent reporting, and my own experience, indicates that the federal Labor government is seriously considering an expansion in the size of the Australian federal parliament, echoing the previous exp…

Today's blog post dives into history and looks at how the Coalition has responded to past Labor moves to expand the size of the parliament, why the attitude of the National Party changed between 1948 and 1983, and what that has to do with redistribution rules. #auspol

"there's a new serif in town"

What might an expanded parliament map look like? A lot of people would love to know how the electoral map would change if the parliament was expanded. We’ve already been able to get some idea of what might happen by looking back at the hist…

Today's blog post is one I've been working on for a while - I have drawn a map of what the electoral map could look like if the Parliament expanded to 16 senators per state and 200 seats in the House. #auspol

EXCITING TIMES! ARCHE's COE "ARC Centre of Excellence for Transforming Human Origins Research" has made the cut! Looking forward to 7 years of research and collaboration with fabulous people from across the Global South!

PhD Scholarships and Post Docs to come!

www.arc.gov.au/news-publica...