We Can't See the Forest for the Trees: Sampling and the Shapes of Archaeological Distributions

This chapter reviews the epidemiological relationships between the methodologies of sampling and specifying archaeological distributions in archaeological fieldwork.

Abstract

This chapter reviews the epidemiological relationships between the methodologies of sampling and specifying archaeological distributions in archaeological fieldwork. The variance in the distribution of material products and precedents in space and time should inform about human behavior in ways that differ from the observation of behavior itself. Thus, it should provide archaeology with a data base that is relatively unique yet important within the behavioral sciences. Four different scientific tasks help in the development of satisfactory approximations of distributional shape: (1) prospecting, (2) sampling, (3) estimation, and (4) hypothesis testing. The ability to interact scientifically with these distributions depends upon the state of the art in research on their shape and on their generating functions; on the state of methodology in prospecting, sampling, and estimation; and on the ability to ask intelligent questions about them. There is no necessary rank order or sequence in these scientific tasks if the goal is the study of archaeological distributions. At the same time, the elegance with which these scientific tasks are completed does not depend only upon a familiarity with the finer points of method.