Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter reviews quantitative data analysis. Recent work provides examples of both solutions to the problems associated with cluster analysis and log-linear modeling methods. Log-linear modeling has been finding increasing use, while cluster analysis has been applied in novel ways as an important tool in intrasite spatial analysis. Further studies go considerably beyond probabilistic sampling in some important respects and again indicate further possibilities for the future in the development of rigorous models in which the mathematics closely matches the archaeological problem. Many of the developments are likely to be outside the field of quantitative data analysis in archaeology as traditionally perceived. Cluster analysis can now be seen as one part of the rapidly developing field of computerized mathematical pattern recognition that will have an important contribution to make in the analysis of shape (artifacts or spatial distributions) in archaeology; indeed, some of these techniques have long been used in archaeology for improving plots of geophysical survey readings and have recently been applied to shapes. The trend in these recent and hypothesized future developments is clear—it is the increasing integration of archaeological knowledge and information into quantitative analyses.