STATISTICAL ASPECTS OF POTTERY QUANTIFICATION FOR THE DATING OF SOME ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXTS

Lise Bellanger (1) , Philippe Husi (2) , Richard Tomassone (3)

1 LMJL - Laboratoire de Mathématiques Jean Leray
2 CITERES - Cités, Territoires, Environnement et Sociétés
3 MIA-Paris - Mathématiques et Informatique Appliquées

This paper describes some statistical analyses of a particular archaeological material (pottery) originating at some sites in the city of Tours. An important part of the archaeological study of pottery is the comparison of ceramic assemblages to establish the absolute dates of contexts. In this paper, a statistical model is built to assess this comparison. The statistical procedure uses classical tools (correspondence analysis, linear regression and resampling methods) in an iterative scheme. Archaeologists may find in the paper a useful set of known statistical methods, while statisticians can learn a method of ‘arranging' well-known techniques. No method is new, but their combination is characteristic of this application.

Mots clés: SIMPLE CORRESPONDENCE ANALYSIS IN ARCHAEOLOGY; REGRESSION MODEL; RESAMPLING METHODS; QUANTITATIVE FABRIC ANALYSIS; POTTERY; CHRONOLOGY

Domaines: Statistiques [math.ST]; Théorie [stat.TH]

Lise Bellanger, Philippe Husi, Richard Tomassone. STATISTICAL ASPECTS OF POTTERY QUANTIFICATION FOR THE DATING OF SOME ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXTS. Archaeometry, 2006, 48 (1), pp.169-183. ⟨hal-00275574⟩