Spatial Analysis
One of the core aspect of my doctoral project was the development of statistical tools aimed for the analysis of the archaeological data. Most of the spatial analysis used in archaeology have been developed in other fields with several assumptions which are not met in Archaeology. One of these concerns with the temporal dimension which is characterised by an extremely high level of uncertainty. I have been particularly interested on approaches which tries to quantify and integrate such uncertainties, which is perhaps one of the biggest problem in archaeological analysis but too often neglected both in theoretical and in methodological considerations. I have been inspired by works in other fields such as criminology, and I think that adopting a probabilistic framework is one possible solution, and have investigated its implications in different ways, ranging from representation issues [4] to actual statistical analyses [3,7]. I’m also interested on spatial analysis from a broader perspective, ranging from the application of local analysis for non-site survey Data [9] to the application of point-process models for settlement archaeology [8].
Top:Cross-Section of a 4d Voxel Representation of Probabilistic Density of Pithouses Distribution, (Chiba-SouthEast New Town Area, Middle-Late Jomon Period, from [4])
Right: Core concept of the Monte-Carlo Approach for the analysis of spatial data with temporal uncertainties. Detail of the actual workflow and methodological discussion can be found in [3].
