Seriation Methods for Archaeological Materials

Bibliographic Data

ID2563071
AuthorsAlan E Gelfand (0000-0002-5671-9212, University of Connecticut, corresponding author)
Year1971
Volume36
Issue3
Pages263-274
Publication date1971-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Antiquity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7316 • E-ISSN: 2325-5064
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/277714
OpenAlexW2316024432
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited6

This paper considers two recently developed mathematical techniques in archaeological seriation. Both techniques take as given, a similarity matrix between the objects to be ordered. The first method is a 'linkage' procedure, while the second (and preferred) is an 'averaging' procedure. The second method, though a bit more mathematical, has been very successful in application to real data. Both techniques have several good features which will be considered. For both illustrative and comparative purposes, the methods have been applied to several sets of archaeological data considered by other researchers. As the comparisons will show, the results have been surprisingly good. More specifically, for such comparisons to be made, a criterion for comparing the 'goodness' of different serial orders for a particular set of data is of great interest. A criterion, or 'goodness of fit' index of this type will be developed and interpreted as well as used for the comparisons of interest. Lastly, a section is devoted to more general discussion of what sorts of data are suitable for reduction by seriation techniques

Archaeology · Data mining · Geography · Index (typography) · Linkage (software) · Programming language · Section (typography) · Seriation (archaeology) · Set (abstract data type) · Similarity (geometry) · Ancient Egypt and Archaeology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Image Processing and 3D Reconstruction

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