ARH312Y1 Lecture : Archaeological Measurement and Error
Document Summary
Factors that affect the accuracy and precision of archaeological measurements: direct measurement: compare two things physically. Indirect measurement: difficult or impossible to measure directly. Measure something you think is related - proxy measures (ex, carbon dating, when you have to do a calculation, how wealthy is a person?, how many people lived on a site?, etc: norrolls theory. Scales of measurement: qualitative (categorical) vs quantitative (numerical). Quantitative (ex, calendar years: only + or - maths, ratio: quantitative, x and / maths (ex, length, width, thickness) Measurement error: need to show your confidence in results, data quality, want to be able to compare data, assures that differences" between sites are real. Archaeological laboraties: banning, using a high precision reliable measuring instrument allows you to consistently get the same. Precision and reliability results within very small margin: measuring instrument can be biased which is why we need to calibrate them, ex, balances, calipers, etc.