====== Quantitative Archaeology Wiki ======

Welcome. This wiki is dedicated to the development of free documentation about quantitative methods in archaeology, using free/open source software. This means that: 
  - **you can contribute** and improve the existing documentation, even with small pieces
  - you should contribute documentation about free and open source software (but general documentation about algorithms and statistical methods is also good)
  - anyone will be able to read, edit and possibly improve your contributions

The documentation is released under the [[http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/|Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License]]. This gives to everyone the freedom to modify and redistribute copies of the content, even for commercial purposes. Follow the link to the license page to learn more about your rights.

A brief **[[todo|TODO list]]** will be helpful to coordinate our work.

This wiki uses [[wiki:dokuwiki|DokuWiki]] as backend. Documentation for editors is available on the Dokuwiki website. A brief [[wiki:syntax|syntax reference]] can be accessed from each page while editing.

The **Quantitative Archaeology Wiki** is hosted and promoted by **[[http://www.iosa.it/|IOSA.it]]**, a project by **[[http://www.grupporicerche.it/|grupporicerche]]**.

===== Contents =====


==== Digging Numbers ====


Our first attempt is to rewrite the exercises for the textbook "Digging Numbers" by Fletcher and Lock using the **''R''** statistical software. This part is still in development, so if you can help, please do it. ☛ [[diggingnumbers:start|Go to the Digging Numbers exercises]].


==== Sum of individual weighted means ====

This is a method to calculate with enhanced precision the chronological distribution of archaeological artefacts that have long time spans. ☛ [[sum of individual weighted means|Go to the weighted means page]]

==== Contingency Tables ====

This is a basic introduction to frequency and contingency tables using **''R''**. A function for plotting Ford “battleship” diagrams is presented. ☛ [[contingency tables|Go to the contingency tables page]]

==== Spatial Analysis ====

Tutorials about spatial analysis techniques using free geospatial software like GRASS, R and others. ☛ [[spatial_analysis:start|Go to the spatial analysis introduction page]]

==== Plotting quantitative pottery data ====

☛ [[pottery:start|Go to the quantitative pottery data page]]

==== Archaeometry ====

Statistical analysis is very often already included in the archaeometric study of materials. Here we try to perform some common analysis with the R programming language. ☛ [[archaeometry:start|Go to the archaeometry page]]

==== Quantitative Archaeology summer school ====

Some brief notes taken at the [[qmdaa:start|I-QMDAA Summer School]] in 2006.


===== Bibliography =====

We are collecting references to published manuals and journals about Quantitative Archaeology [[bibliography:start|in this section]].


====== Mailing List ======

There's an [[http://list.iosa.it|international mailing list]] to discuss about quantitative methods, free software in archaeology, open formats and more. The list is kindly hosted by the [[http://www.linux.it|Italian Linux Society]].

Here's a list of recent posts:

{{rss>http://rss.gmane.org/topics/excerpts/gmane.science.archaeology.quantitative-archaeology author date 12h }}

====== On the Web ======

A number of websites deal with some of the topics this wiki is about:

  * http://www.iosa.it/ (English)
  * http://www.arc-team.com/ (English, German, Italian)
  * [[http://www.uni-kiel.de/ufg/ufg_BerDucke.htm|Benjamin Ducke]] (German)
  * http://www.archeogr.unisi.it/asiaa/ (Italian)
  * [[http://archaeogeophysics.org/|archaeogeophysics.org]] provides an open source text describing how to process archaeological geophysics data (English)