Monthly Archives: October 2022

The Bayesian Inferential Paradigm in Archaeology

Archaeologists often use data and quantitative statistical methods to evaluate their ideas. Although thereare various statistical frameworks for decision-making in archaeology and science in general, in this chapter,we provide a simple explanation of Bayesian statistics. To contextualize the Bayesian statistical framework,we briefly compare it to the more widespread null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) approach. Wealso…

Beyond Chronology, Using Bayesian Inference to Evaluate Hypotheses in Archaeology

Archaeologists frequently use probability distributions and null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) to assess how well survey, excavation, or experimental data align with their hypotheses about the past. Bayesian inference is increasingly used as an alternative to NHST and, in archaeology, is most commonly applied to radiocarbon date estimation and chronology building. This article demonstrates that…