R for Archaeology

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.

Using the Central Andean Chavín Phenomenon as a case study, this paper explores the middle ground between top-down (big data) and …

We illustrate the way in which landscape taphonomy predictably complicates “dates-as-data” approaches, propose and demonstrate a new method of empirically based correction, and explore the interpretive ramifications of ignoring or correcting for taphonomic bias.

The documentation and analysis of archaeological lithics must navigate a basic tension between examining and recording data on …

This paper explores the relationship between past climate and prehistoric Mediterranean agriculture by adapting a process-based dynamic …

Assessing the implications of paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental data at temporal and spatial scales that would have directly …

Holocene climate variability in the Mediterranean Basin is often cited as a potential driver of societal change, but the mechanisms of …

The logic of using summed radiocarbon (14C) calibrations (cumulative probability density functions for large numbers of calibrated 14C …