Abstract
After a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, probability sampling became much less visible in archaeological literature as it came under assault from the post-processual critique and the widespread adoption of “full-coverage survey.” After 1990, published discussion of probability sampling rarely strayed from sample-size issues in analyses of artifacts along with plant and animal remains, and most textbooks and archaeological training limited sampling to regional survey and did little to equip new generations of archaeologists with this critical aspect of research design. A review of the last 20 years of archaeological literature indicates a need for deeper and broader archaeological training in sampling; more precise usage of terms such as “sample”; use of randomization as a control in experimental design; and more attention to cluster sampling, stratified sampling, and nonspatial sampling in both training and research.
Highlights
After a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, probability sampling became much less visible in archaeological literature as it came under assault from the post-processual critique and the widespread adoption of “full-coverage survey.” After 1990, published discussion of probability sampling rarely strayed from sample-size issues in analyses of artifacts along with plant and animal remains, and most textbooks and archaeological training limited sampling to regional survey and did little to equip new generations of archaeologists with this critical aspect of research design
Probability sampling is a set of methods with the goal of controlling this risk of bias by ensuring that the sample is “representative” of the population so that we can estimate a parameter on the basis of a statistic
In a disproportionate stratified random cluster sample of all research articles in American Antiquity, Journal of Archaeological Science (JAS), Journal of Field Archaeology (JFA), and Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory (JAMT) from 2000 to 2019 (Supplemental Text 4), 24 ± 1.1% of articles mention some kind of sample without specifying what kind of sample it is
Summary
After a heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, probability sampling became much less visible in archaeological literature as it came under assault from the post-processual critique and the widespread adoption of “full-coverage survey.” After 1990, published discussion of probability sampling rarely strayed from sample-size issues in analyses of artifacts along with plant and animal remains, and most textbooks and archaeological training limited sampling to regional survey and did little to equip new generations of archaeologists with this critical aspect of research design. Probability sampling is a set of methods with the goal of controlling this risk of bias by ensuring that the sample is “representative” of the population so that we can estimate a parameter on the basis of a statistic.
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