Material Correlates Analysis (MCA): An Innovative way of Examining Questions in Archaeology Using Ethnographic Data (original) (raw)
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1999
In the last years, the analysis of settlement patterns has been accomplished from different quantitative points of view, including statistic analysis, GIS, etc. This work is focused on obtaining a quantitative model of index parameters based in the UTM coordinates, using a 1:10.000 scale map. The set of indexes is studied by means of statistical analysis (Kruskal-Wallis, principal components analysis, cluster analysis and Voronoi tesselations), providing the chronocultural settlement patterns and the relationships between the archaeological site, the surrounding area and the chronological period of the site.
Material Correlates Analysis (MCA)
Advances in Archaeological Practice
ABSTRACTTheories developed and validated using ethnographic and historical resources are often difficult to examine using sparse or fragmentary archaeological material. However, a number of statistical techniques make it possible to integrate data from ethnographic, historical, and archaeological resources into a single analytical framework. This article introduces Material Correlates Analysis (MCA)—a new method of filling gaps in the archaeological data using a strategic combination of data collection, multidimensional scaling, principal component analysis, and generalized liner modeling. Generalized liner modeling is a particularly useful tool in formal inferential statistics for comparing a priori classified groups of historical and/or ethnographic (known) cases with archaeological (unknown) ones on the basis of relevant variables. MCA allows us to overcome the inherent material culture limitations regarding data on key variables by using available historical or ethnographic evid...
Integrating Anthropological Science in Archaeological Practice: The Importance of Spatial Data
Turkish Journal of Archaeological Science, 2024
TR Mezarlar arkeolojinin kritik konularından biridir ve ölüm sonrası sürecin bağlamı arkeologlar tarafından araştırılan arkeolojik kayıtların önemli bir bölümünü oluşturur. Ancak, insan kalıntılarının bilimsel analizi genellikle kazı sonrasıyla sınırlıdır. Bu da arkeolojik verilerin insan kalıntılarının yorumlanmasına nadiren entegre edildiği anlamına gelir. Bu makalede, kazı sırasında toplanan mekansal verinin insan kalıntılarının yorumlanmasını nasıl etkilediği tartışılmaktadır. Başur Höyük’te (Siirt, Türkiye) bulunan bir toplu mezarda birey düzeyinde toplanan mekansal verilerin ve konum özelliklerinin, mezarın oluşum koşulları ve eylemlerini yeniden yapılandırmak için ne denli önemli olduğunu öne sürüyoruz. ENG The excavation of human remains is a critical aspect of archaeology, and mortuary context forms a considerable portion of the archaeological record investigated by archaeologists. However, the scientific analysis of human remains is frequently limited to post-excavation, meaning that archaeological data is rarely integrated into the interpretation of human remains. This paper examines the contribution of anthropological science during excavation using one specific class of data – spatial position – in order to understand how information on location affects the interpretation of human remains in archaeological contexts. Examining the utility of spatial information of human remains excavated from a mass grave at the site of Başur Höyük, near Siirt, Türkiye, we propose that spatial or location data collected at the level of the individual element is necessary to reconstruct the circumstances and actions in respect of the creation and formation of the studied mass grave.
Notes on Quantitative Archaeology and R
This is a book-length treatment on the subject of statistical methods frequently used in Quantitative Archaeology and their implementation using the open-source software R. It is not intended as a textbook or as an introduction to either statistical methods or R, though it is intended to be accessible. There are plenty of good texts on these subjects to which this text might be seen as complementary. There is an emphasis on the analysis of real data sets, more so than in typical introductory quantitative archaeology texts. There is, similarly, an emphasis not to be found in other archaeological texts on the practicalities of implementation using modern statistical software, R. This is an open-source and extremely powerful package that has grown rapidly into something of an ‘industry-standard’ in applied statistics, and other application areas, that has not really touched archaeology much yet, at least in terms of what is visible in the literature. The underlying premise, that statistical methods are conceptually simpler, and more easily implemented, than is often conceded is spelled out in the introductory chapter. For those unfamiliar with R, and with data they need to analyse, one way of putting this is that there is life beyond Excel and SPSS well worth making the effort to discover. The text is moderately lengthy and is also available in the form of individual chapters, along with the data sets used, in Excel format.
The recent articles by Vardi et al., “Tracing sickle blade levels of wear and discard patterns: a new sickle gloss quantification method” (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1716-1724), and Goodale et al., “Sickle blade life-history and the transition to agriculture: an early Neolithic case study from Southwest Asia” (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1192-1201), are two papers that seek to address interesting archaeological questions through the development of new approaches to measuring the duration of stone tool use. Here comment is made on the fashion in which research design and analytic procedures contribute to limit the capabilities of each of the techniques presented. Whilst the authors support the investigation of novel techniques, in order for the results of any use-wear analysis to be accepted as reliable the methods employed must be demonstrably sound.
Journal of Archaeological Science
a b s t r a c t The recent articles by Vardi et al., "Tracing sickle blade levels of wear and discard patterns: a new sickle gloss quantification method" (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 (2010) 1716e1724), and Goodale et al., "Sickle blade life-history and the transition to agriculture: an early Neolithic case study from Southwest Asia" (Journal of Archaeological Science 37 , are two papers that seek to address interesting archaeological questions through the development of new approaches to measuring the duration of stone tool use. Here comment is made on the fashion in which research design and analytic procedures contribute to limit the capabilities of each of the techniques presented. Whilst the authors support the investigation of novel techniques, in order for the results of any use-wear analysis to be accepted as reliable the methods employed must be demonstrably sound.
Statistical Reasoning and Archaeological Theorizing: The Double-Bind Problem
Mathematics and Archaeology, edited by Juan A. Barcelo and Igor Bogdanovic , 2015
The theme of this chapter is the use of statistical reasoning to extend archaeological reasoning about past social and cultural systems according to their material traces that have survived to the present. Archaeology, though, by its nature as a discipline, deals directly with the material objects formed and produced through deliberate human activity and only indirectly with the underlying cultural framework for which the material objects are the instantiation through culturally mediated behavior: “Culture does not consist of artifacts. The latter are merely the results of culturally conditioned behavior performed by the artisan (Rouse 1939: 15)”. This distinction expresses, even if implicitly, the ontological basis both for using statistical ideas to expand upon, and extend, archaeological reasoning and for theorizing aimed at forming a connection between what is directly observed by the archaeologist and the underlying “culturally conditioned behavior.” From a mathematical viewpoint, the distinction implies that we need to distinguish between mathematical reasoning used to address the organization and structure of the idea systems making up culture (Lane et al. 2009, Leaf and Read 2012, Read 2012), and the statistical methods used to study patterning determined at the phenomenal level of the material objects produced through culturally conditioned behavior.