Nuove prospettive nelle analisi di correlazioni spaziali in preistoria

Amilcare Bietti

«Archeologia e Calcolatori» 1993, 4, 39-60

Abstract

This paper provides a short summary of some recent results in intrasite spatial analysis in Prehistoric archaeology and, in particular, in Paleolithic archaeology where, as it is well known, intrasite spatial analyses have been applied for at least twenty years. Starting with some “classic” examples of 80’s (the Magdalenian site of Pincevent, the ethnoarchaeological analysis of the Mask site in Alaska), and a short illustration of the techniques applied (correspondence analysis, k-means cluster analysis, unconstrained clustering, factor analysis, etc.), some of the most recent applications are described: the Mesolithic Barmose I site in Denmark, studied by H. Blankholm, and the Middle Pleistocene site of Grotte Vaufrey in South West France (Dordogne), where the intrasite spatial analysis has been performed by J. Simek. We then discuss the relationship between the “quality” of the quantitative procedures used in the data analysis, which is in general of an outstanding level, and the “reliability” of the archaeological interpretation. A major conclusion is that the problems arising in the archaeological interpretation (a good example of which is Grotte Vaufrey) are much more connected with the choice of variables in the quantitative analysis, than with the different algorithms employed: we thus recommend to the archaeologists (and not to the computer scientists involved in the research) the basic selection and choice of the essential variables derived from the data.

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