A Statistical Approach for Dating Archaeological Context

This paper describes a statistical model developing from Cor- respondence Analysis to date archaeological contexts of the city of Tours (France) and also to obtain an estimated absolute timescale. The data set used in the study is reported as a contingency table of ceramics against con- texts. But, as pottery is not intrinsically a dating indicator (a date is rarely inscribed on each piece of pottery), we estimate dates of contexts from their finds, and we use coins to attest the date of assemblages. The model-based approach uses classical tools (correspondence analysis, linear regression and resampling methods) in an iterative scheme. Archaeologists may find in the paper a useful set of known statistical methods, while statisticians can learn a way to order well known techniques. No method is new, but their gathering is characteristic of this application.