Pompeii, Tombs and Drinking Habits: Archaeology Counts

Abstract

Pompeii and statistics? Iron age tombs and correspondence analysis? It comes as a surprise to many that there are any applications at all of statistics and mathematics in archaeology. But as Mike Baxter explains, counting what you find can give new insights into the past.

Early Human Evolution and the Skulls of Dmanisi

“…This has allowed them to use the techniques of geometric morphometrics with the sample. Essentially, geometric morphometrics is the application of statistical methods, most notably principal component analysis 3 and cluster analysis, to the shapes and forms of the skulls. It tells us, quantitatively, the degree to which they vary from each other in shape, and where the differences and similarities lie.…”