Abstract
Statistical methods now form an important part of the interpretative tool kit of archaeologists. Of these the most common are descriptive statistical methods such as: means and standard deviations, medians and modes, histograms, pie charts, line graphs, etc. It is increasingly common, however, for archaeologists and their co-workers (such as physicists, chemists, geologists and environmental scientists) to adopt model-based statistical tools. Such tools use mathematical representations of the processes which gave rise to the data we observe today and help us to begin to understand them. Statistical models are particularly relevant for aiding in archaeological interpretation as they allow us to include sources of uncertainty that are so often present in our understanding of the archaeological record.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
BAYES, T.R. (1763): An essay towards solving a problem in the doctrine of chances. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 53, 370–418.
BOWMAN, S. (1990): Interpreting the Past: radiocarbon dating. Museum Publications, London.
BUCK, C.E., CAVANAGH, W.G., LITTON, C.D. (1988): The spatial analysis of site phosphate data. Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology, 1988, 151–160. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford.
BUCK, C.E., CAVANAGH, W.G., LITTON, C.D. (1996): The Bayesian Approach to Interpreting Archaeological Data. Wiley, Chichester.
BUCK, C.D., CHRISTEN, J.A. (1998): A novel approach to selecting samples for radiocarbon dating. Journal of Archaeological Science, 25.
BUCK, C.E., CHRISTEN, J.A., KENWORTHY, J.B., LITTON, C.D. (1994): Estimating the duration of archaeological activity using 14C determinations. Oxford Journal of Archaeology, 13(2), 229–240. 1994a.
BUCK, C.E., KENWORTHY, J.B., LITTON, C.D., SMITH, A.F.M. (1991): Combining archaeological and radiocarbon information: a Bayesian approach to calibration. Antiquity, 65(249), 808–821.
BUCK, C.E., LITTON,C.D. (1996): Mixtures, Bayes and Archaeology. In Dawid, A.P., Bernardo, J.M., Berger, J., Smith, A.F.M., editors, Bayesian Statistics 5, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
BUCK, C.E., LITTON, C.D., SHENNAN, S.J. (1994): A case study in combining radiocarbon and archaeological information: the early Bronze Age settlement of St. Veit-Klinglberg, Land Salzburg, Austria. Germania, 2, 427–447. 1994b.
BUCK, C.E., LITTON, C.D., SMITH, A.F.M. (1992): Calibration of radiocarbon results pertaining to related archaeological events. Journal of Archaeological Science, 19, 497–512.
BUCK, C.E., LITTON, C.D., STEPHENS, D.A. (1993): Detecting a change in the shape of a prehistoric corbelled tomb. The Statistician 42(4), 483–490.
CHRISTEN, J.A. (1994): Bayesian interpretation of 14C results. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, 1994a.
CHRISTEN, J.A. (1994): Summarising a set of radiocarbon determinations: a robust approach. Applied Statistics, 43(3), 489–503. 1994 b.
FREEMAN, P.R. (1976): A Bayesian approach to the megalithic yard. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society A, 139, 20–55.
GILKS, W., RICHARDSON, S., SPIEGELHALTER, D.J. (1996): Markov chain Monte Carlo in Practice. Chapman and Hall, London.
HOWSON, C., URBACH, P. (1993): Scientific Reasoning: the Bayesian approach. Open Court, Illinois, second edition.
KADANE, J.B., HASTORF, C.A. (1988): Bayesian paleoethnobotany. In Lindley, D.V., Bernardo, J.M., DeGroot, M.H., Smith, A.F.M., editors, Bayesian Statistics 3, 243–260. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
LITTON, C.D., BUCK, C.E. (1996): An archaeological example: radiocarbon dating. In Richardson, S., Gilks, W., Spiegelhalter, D., editors, Markov Chain Monte Carlo in Practice. Chapman and Hall, London.
LUCY, D., AYKROYD, R.G., POLLARD, A.M., SOLHEIM,T.: A Bayesian approach to adult human age estimation from dental observations by Gustafson’s method. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 41(2), 189–194.
RAMSEY, C.B. (1995): Radiocarbon calibration and analysis of stratigraphy: the OxCal program. Radiocarbon, 37(2), 425–430.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin · Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Buck, C.E. (1999). Bayesian Statistics for Archaeology. In: Gaul, W., Locarek-Junge, H. (eds) Classification in the Information Age. Studies in Classification, Data Analysis, and Knowledge Organization. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60187-3_59
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-60187-3_59
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65855-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-60187-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive