Information science in archaeology: a short history and some recent trends

Albertus Voorrips

«Archeologia e Calcolatori» 1996, 7, 303-312

Abstract

In the first section of this paper, some of the developments in the use of information science in archaeology are discussed, putting them in a more general framework of developments in archaeological theory. It shows the shift from “classical” statistical approaches, which concentrate on hypothesis testing, towards more heuristic, pattern searching methods of analysis. In the second section, some research is presented on the use of Bayesian statistics for solving archaeological problems. It illustrates, on the one hand, the case with which rather complicated quantitative analyses can be performed with the help of standard computing tools, and, on the other hand, the risks of carrying out such analyses without a clear, logically sound underpinning.

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