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Spatial methods for analysing large-scale artefact inventories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Andrew Bevan
Andrew Bevan*
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK (Email: a.bevan@ucl.ac.uk)
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Extract

Finds distributions plotted over landscapes and continents, once the mainstay of archaeological cultural mapping, went into a lengthy period of decline when it was realised that many were artefacts of modern recovery rather than patterns of their own day. What price then, the rich harvest of finds being collected by modern routine procedures of rescue work and by metal-detectorists? The author shows how distribution patterns can be validated, and sample bias minimised, through comparison with maps of known populations and by presenting the distributions more sharply by risk surface analysis. This not only endorses the routine recording of surface finds currently undertaken in every country, but opens the door to new social and economic interpretations through methods of singular power.

Keywords

distribution mapsgeo-referencingrisk surface analysismultivariate regressionPortable Antiquities SchemeNorman coinageIron Age coinageDomesday population
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 332 , June 2012 , pp. 492 - 506
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2012

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