Academic Article
Some Experiments in the Numerical Analysis of Archaeological Data
- Title
- Some Experiments in the Numerical Analysis of Archaeological Data
- Date
- 1966
- Is Part Of
- Biometrika
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 3-4
- Pages
- 311-324
- Language
- eng
- ISSN
- 0006-3444
- Abstract
- The value for archaeology of some available methods of numerical classification was investigated. Brooches from an Iron Age site in Switzerland (Münsingen) were chosen for analysis for two reasons: they show variation over a typically wide range of attributes, and their archaeological context, in rich associations in a horizontally stratified cemetery, provides independent evidence to check the significance of any proposed classifications. A further control on results was provided by an `intuitive' classification of the brooches by professional archaeologists. The brooches were described numerically by quantitative and qualitative characters, and a similarity coefficient was computed between each pair. These coefficients were then submitted to two forms of cluster analysis (single- and average-link) and to a multi-dimensional scaling procedure. The average-link, but not the single-link, cluster analysis and the multi-dimensional scaling procedure were found to produce classifications of demonstrable archaeological significance.
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