R for Archaeological Data Analysis and Visualization

This course introduces students to the basic quantitative methods required to describe and analyze archaeological data. Each week, students will be introduced to a new statistical technique and asked to use that technique in order to solve a small research problem. Because many of the research challenges archaeologists face have to do with acquiring and managing data (especially legacy data) and then using it in argumentation, this course will emphasize not only statistical methods, but also 1) how to construct and critically evaluate arguments grounded in quantitative data, and 2) how to explore, analyze, and display data in the open-source R statistical environment.