Session: #648

Theme & Session Format

Theme:
Theories and methods in archaeological sciences
Session format:
Session, made up of a combination of papers, max. 15 minutes each

Title & Content

Title:
Who’s counting? Exploring new avenues for a unified quantification framework of archaeological data in material studies
Content:
Reconstructing ancient social dynamics through the lens of material culture lies at the core of archaeological interpretation. Evidence of people’s actions and natural events materialize in concentrations of artefacts and ecofacts that enable us to trace human past behaviors. Not surprisingly, quantification methods are a recurrent issue in archaeological research about all categories of objects, their typologies and distributions. Traditionally, much attention has been paid to the development of increasingly sophisticated techniques of quantitative analysis, greatly expanding the amount of data at our disposal. Yet, the lack of uniformity in their application does not always allow for comparison, making therefore those datasets not fully usable (Orton 1993; Arcelin&Tuffreau-Libre 1998). This lack of unified quantification methods is not only a hindrance to the interpretation of datasets, but also for engaging with formation biases, which are essential for understanding whether the analysis are valid in the first place. This session aims to go beyond diverging enumeration methods of observed evidence in the present, and make a step towards more synergy in the fragmented landscape of quantification in material studies. We seek to do this by having presentations that engage with these issues, but also by providing a context for stimulating discussion. Therefore, we encourage contributions that provide (new) quantitative frameworks to investigate the material record, engage with methodological issues in quantifying material assemblages, seek to quantitatively integrate different datasets and/or discuss the problems and the needs for doing so.
Keywords:
Archaeological quantification; variability; material culture
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no

Organisers

Main organiser:
(current PhD. Student) Martina Revello Lami (Netherlands) 1
Co-organisers:
current PhD student Jitte Waagen (Netherlands) 2
current Phd student Miguel Busto Zapico (Spain) 3
Dr. Antonio F. Ferrandes (Italy) 4
Dr. Ilaria Manzini (Netherlands) 5
Affiliations:
1. Leiden University
2. University of amsterdam
3. University of Oviedo
4. Sapienza University of Rome
5. University of Amsterdam