Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T05:42:32.790Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, D. 1961. A study of the Dobunnic coinage, in Clifford, E. (ed.) Bagendon: a Belgic oppidum: 75–149. Cambridge: Heffer and Sons.Google Scholar
Allen, M. 2011. Silver production and the money supply in England and Wales, 1086-c.1500. Economic History Review 64(1): 114–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baddeley, A. J. & Turner, R.. 2005. spatstat: an R package for analyzing spatial point patterns. Journal of Statistical Software 12(6): 1–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bevan, A. In press. Value, authority and the open society. Some implications for digital and online archaeology, in Bonacchi, C. (ed.) Archaeology and digital communication: towards strategies of engagement. London: Archetype.Google Scholar
Blackburn, M. 2005. Disseminating find evidence; the British Corpus of Early Medieval Coin Finds, in Alfaro, C., Marcos, C. & Otero, P. (ed.) XIII Congreso Internacional de Numismática I: 169–71. Milan: Ministerio de Cultura, Secretaría General Técnica.Google Scholar
Bland, R. 2005. Rescuing our neglected heritage: the evolution of the Government's policy on Portable Antiquities and Treasure. Cultural Trends 14(4): 257–96.Google Scholar
Bland, R. & Loriot, X.. 2010. Roman and Early Byzantine gold coins found in Britain and Ireland. London: Royal Numismatic Society.Google Scholar
Brindle, T. 2011. The Portable Antiquities Scheme and Roman Britain. Unpublished PhD dissertation, King's College London.Google Scholar
Clifford, E. (ed.) 1961. Bagendon: a Belgic oppidum. Cambridge: Heffer and Sons.Google Scholar
Collard, M., Edinborough, K., Shennan, S. & Thomas, M.G.. 2010. Radiocarbon evidence indicates that migrants introduced farming to Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 866–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collis, J. R. 1971. Functional and theoretical interpretations of British coinage. World Archaeology 3(1): 71–84.Google Scholar
Creighton, J. 2005. Gold, ritual and kingship, in Haselgrove, C. & Wigg-Wolf, D. (ed.) Iron Age coinage and ritual practices: 69–84. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.Google Scholar
Cunliffe, B. 1991. Iron Age communities in Britain. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Darby, H. C., Campbell, E.M.J., Maxwell, I. S., Terrett, I.B., Versey, G. R. & Finn, R. Welldon (ed.). 1962–1975. Domesday geography of England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
De Jersey, P. 2005. Deliberate defacement of British Iron Age coinage, in Haselgrove, C. & Wigg-Wolf, D. (ed.) Iron Age coinage and ritual practices: 85–113. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.Google Scholar
De Jersey, P. 2007. Evidence of absence? The rarity of gold in Durotrigan Iron Age coinage, in Gosden, C., Hamerow, H., De Jersey, P. & Lock, G. (ed.) Communities and connections: essays in honour of Barry Cunliffe: 367–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Haselgrove, C. 1993. The development of British Iron Age coinage. Numismatic Chronicle 153: 31–63.Google Scholar
Haselgrove, C. & Wigg-Wolf, D. (ed.). 2005. Iron Age coinage and ritual practices. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern.Google Scholar
Hazelton, M. L. & Davies, T. M.. 2009. Inference based on kernel estimates of the relative risk function in geographical epidemiology. Biometrical Journal 51(1): 98–109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hinde, A. 2003. England's population. A history since the Domesday survey. London: Hodder Arnold.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. & Orton, C.. 1976. Spatial analysis in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hogg, A.H.A. 1971. Some applications of surface fieldwork, in Jesson, M. & Hill, D. (ed.) The Iron Age and its hillforts: 105–125. Southampton: University of Southampton.Google Scholar
Kelsall, J. E. & Diggle, P. J.. 1995. Non-parametric estimation of spatial variation in relative risk. Statistics in Medicine 14: 2335–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kimes, T., Haselgrove, C. & Hodder, I.. 1982. A method for the identification of the location of regional cultural boundaries. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1: 113–31.Google Scholar
Leins, I. n. d. Numismatic data reconsidered: coin distributions and interpretation in studies of Late Iron Age Britain. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Newcastle.Google Scholar
Martin, D. 1996. An assessment of surface and zonal models of population. International Journal of Geographic Information Science 10(8): 973–89.Google Scholar
Metcalf, D. M. 1998. An atlas of Anglo-Saxon and Norman coin finds, c. 973-1086 (RNS Special Publication 32). London: Royal Numismatic Society.Google Scholar
Moore, J. S. 1997. ‘Quot homines?’: the population of Domesday England. Anglo-Norman Studies 19: 307–334.Google Scholar
Palmer, J.J.N. 1998. ‘War and Domesday waste’, in Strickland, M. (ed.) Armies, chivalry and warfare in medieval Britain and France: proceedings of the 1995 Harlaxton Symposium: 256–75. Stamford: Paul Watkins.Google Scholar
Richards, J. D., Naylor, J. & Holas, C.-CLARK. 2009. Anglo-Saxon landscape and economy: using portable antiquities to study Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age England. Internet Archaeology 25. Available at: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue25/richardsindex.html (accessed 3 February 2012).Google Scholar
Robbins, K. In prep. From past to present: understanding the impact of sampling bias on data recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Southampton.Google Scholar
Rodwell, W. 1981. Lost and found: the archaeology of find-spots of Celtic coins, in Cunliffe, B. (ed.) Coinage and society in Britain and Gaul: some current problems: 43–52. London: Council for British Archaeology.Google Scholar
Roffe, D. 2007. Decoding Domesday. Woodbridge: Boydell.Google Scholar
Selwood, L. 1984. Tribal boundaries viewed from the perspective of numismatic evidence, in Cunliffe, B. & Miles, D. (ed.) Aspects of the Iron Age in central southern Britain (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monographs 2): 191–205. Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Shennan, S. J. & Conolly, J.. 2007. The origin and spread of Neolithic plant economies in the Near East and Europe. UKADS Archive 452. doi: 10.5284/1000093.Google Scholar
Sherratt, A. 1996. Why Wessex? The Avon route and river transport in later British prehistory. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 15(2): 211–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soja, E. 1971. The political organization of space. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Geographers.Google Scholar
Steele, J. & Shennan, S. J.. 2000. Spatial and chronological patterns in the Neolithisation of Europe. UKADS Archive 283. doi: 10.5284/1000207.Google Scholar
Van Arsdell, R. 1994. The coinage of the Dobunni (Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 38). Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Verhagen, P. & Whitley, T. G.. 2011. Integrating archaeological theory and predictive modeling: a live report from the scene. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. Online First. doi: 10.1007/s10816-011-9102-7.Google Scholar
Walton, P. 2010. Rethinking Roman Britain: an applied numismatic analysis of the Roman coin data recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University College London.Google Scholar