Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-05T13:03:30.643Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Awful Truth about Statistics in Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David Hurst Thomas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The archaeology of the past two decades has become increasingly quantitative, computerized, statistical, and this is as it should be. All right-thinking archaeologists begin with samples and attempt to generalize about the populations from which their samples were drawn. Statistical theory has evolved to assist investigators in making just this important inferential step and archaeologists have increasingly turned to statistics to square their research with the canons of Science. But the statistical revolution in archaeology is not without its price. We must now face the fact that all applications of statistics to archaeology can no longer be applauded. The archaeological literature is badly polluted with misuses and outright abuses of statistical method and theory. This paper discusses some of these faulty applications and makes some recommendations which, if heeded, should improve the quality of quantitative methods in archaeology.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , April 1978 , pp. 231 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adovasio, J. M. 1970 Correlation between lithic changes and textile changes in the eastern Great Basin. Paper presented at the69th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Diego.Google Scholar
Aikens, C. Melvin 1970 HogupCave. University of Utah, Anthropological Papers 93. Google Scholar
Bidwell, O. W., and Hole, F. D. 1964 An experiment in the numerical classification of some Kansas soils. Soil Science Society, American Proceedings 28:263–8.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1962 A new method of calculating dates from Kaolin pipe stem samples. Southeastern Archaeological Conference,Newsletter 9(1):19–21. Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1965 Archaeological systematics and the study of cultural process. American Antiquity 31:203–10.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1972a The “Binford” pipe stem formula: a return from the grave. The Conference on Historic Site ArchaeologyPapers 6:230–53.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1972b Contemporary model building: paradigms and the current state of Paleolithic research. In Models in archaeology, edited by Clarke, David L., pp. 109–66. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Chenhall, Robert G. 1975 A rationale for archaeological sampling. In Sampling in archaeology, edited by Mueller, James W., pp.3–25. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Christenson, Andrew L. and Read, Dwight W. 1977 Numerical Taxonomy, R-Mode Factor Analysis and Archaeological Classification. American Antiquity 42:163–79.Google Scholar
Clarke, David L. 1968 Analytical Archaeology. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Clarke, David L. 1970 Beaker pottery of Great Britain and Ireland. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Cowgill, George L. 1968 Archaeological applications of factor, cluster, and proximity analyses. American Antiquity 33:367–75.Google Scholar
Cowgill, George L. 1970 Some sampling and reliability problems in archaeology. In Archéologie et calculateurs: problemessémiologiques et mathématiques, Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, pp. 161–75. Paris.Google Scholar
Cowgill, George L. 1975 A selection of samplers: comments on archaeo-statistics. In Sampling in archaeology, edited by Mueller, James W., pp. 258–74. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
Deetz, James 1968 The inference of residence and descent rules from archaeological data. In New perspectives in archeology, edited by S. R., and Binford, L. R., pp. 41–8. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Doran, J. E. and Hodson, F. R. 1975 Mathematics and computers in archaeology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Flannery, Kent V. 1976 The trouble with regional sampling. In The Early Mesoamerican village, edited by Flannery, Kent V., pp.159–60. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Gunn, Joel 1975 An envirotechnological system for Hogup Cave. American Antiquity 40:3–21.Google Scholar
Hanson, LeeH. 1971 Kaolin pipe stems—boring in on a fallacy. The Conference on Historic Site Archaeology Papers 4:2–15 Google Scholar
Harbottle, Garman 1975 Activation analysis study of ceramics from the Capacha (Colima) and Opera (Michoacan) phases of WestMexico. American Antiquity 40:453–8.Google Scholar
Harrington, J. C. 1954 Dating stem fragments of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century clay tobacco pipes. Quarterly Bulletin ofthe Archaeological Society of Virginia 9:6–8.Google Scholar
Harris, Marvin 1971 Culture, man, and nature: an introduction to general anthropology. Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York.Google Scholar
Heighton, Robert F. and Deagan, Kathleen A. 1972 A new formula for dating Kaolin clay pipestems. The Conference on Historic Site Archaeology Papers 6:220–9.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian and Orton, Clive C. 1976 Spatial analysis in archaeology. Cambridge University Press, London.Google Scholar
Hodson, F. R. 1970 Cluster analysis and archaeology: some new developments and applications. World Archaeology 1:299–320.Google Scholar
Hodson, F. R. 1971 Numerical typology and prehistoric archaeology. In Mathematics in the archaeological and historicalsciences, edited by Hodson, F. R., Kendall, D. G., and Tautu, P., pp. 30–45. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Hodson, F. R. 1973 Review of Models in archaeology, edited by David L. Clarke. Nature 242:350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodson, F. R., Sneath, P. H. A., and Doran, J. E. 1966 Some experiments in the numerical analysis of archaeological data. Biometrika 53:311–24.Google Scholar
Johnson, Leroy Jr. 1972 Problems in “avant garde” archaeology. American Anthropologist 74:366–77.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. and Kluckhohn, Clyde 1952 Culture: a critical review of concepts and definitions. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeologyand Ethnology XLVII (1).Google Scholar
LeBlanc, Steven A. 1974 Review of Models in archaeology, edited by David L. Clarke. American Anthropologist 76:657–9.Google Scholar
Long, Austin and Rippeteau, Bruce 1974 Testing contemporaneity and averaging radiocarbon dates. American Antiquity 39:205–15.Google Scholar
Matson, R. G. 1975 A sampling simulation program. Newsletter of Computer Archaeology XI: 1–4.Google Scholar
Matson, R. G. and True, D. L. 1974 Site relationships at Quebrada Tarapaca, Chile: a comparison of clustering and scaling techniques. American Antiquity 39:51–74.Google Scholar
Mueller, James W. 1974 The use of sampling in archaeological survey. Society for American Archaeology Memoir, 28.Google Scholar
Redman, Charles L. 1973 Multivariate approach to understanding changes in an early farming community in southeast Anatolia. In The Explanation of culture change: models in prehistory, edited by Renfrew, Colin, pp. 717–24. University ofPittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Service, Elman 1969 Models for the methodology of mouthtalk. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 25:68–80.Google Scholar
Sokal, Robert R. and Rohlf, F. James 1969 Biometry. W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Solheim, Wilhelm G., II 1976 Polythetic classification. Man 11:282–3.Google Scholar
Spaulding, A. C. 1958 The significance of differences between radiocarbon dates. A merican A ntiquity 23:309–11.Google Scholar
Taylor, Walter W. 1948 A study of archeology. American Anthropological Association Memoir, 69. Carbondale, Illinois.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst 1971 On the use of cumulative curves and numerical taxonomy. American Antiquity 36:206–9.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst 1976 Figuring anthropology: first principles of probability and statistics. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst and Bettinger, Robert L. 1976 Prehistoric piñon ecotone settlements of the upper Reese River Valley, central Nevada. AnthropologicalPapers of the American Museum of Natural History 53:263–366.Google Scholar
Whallon, Robert E. Jr., 1974 Working with the “New Paradigm.” Reviews in Anthropology 1:25–33.Google Scholar
White, J. P. and Thomas, David Hurst 1972 What mean these stones? Ethno-taxonomic models and archaeological interpretations in the New GuineaHighlands. In Models in archaeology, edited by Clarke, David L., pp. 275–308. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Williams, Leonard, Thomas, David Hurst, and Bettinger, Robert 1973 Notions to numbers: Great Basin settlements as polythetic sets. In Research and theory in current archeology, edited by Redman, Charles L., pp. 215–37. John Wiley and Sons, New York.Google Scholar