title: Mixture model of pottery decorations from Lake Chad Basin archaeological sites reveals ancient segregation patterns.
abstract: We present a new statistical approach to analysing an extremely common archaeological data type--potsherds--that infers the structure of cultural relationships across a set of excavation units (EUs). This method, applied to data from a set of complex, culturally heterogeneous sites around the Mandara mountains in the Lake Chad Basin, helps elucidate cultural succession through the Neolithic and Iron Age. We show how the approach can be integrated with radiocarbon dates to provide detailed portraits of cultural dynamics and deposition patterns within single EUs. In this context, the analysis supports ancient cultural segregation analogous to historical ethnolinguistic patterning in the region. We conclude with a discussion of the many possible model extensions using other archaeological data types.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA jobrien@bowdoin.edu.
authors.forename: John D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: O'Brien
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA.
authors.forename: Kathryn
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: MacEachern
mesh_terms: D001106:Archaeology; D002163:Cameroon; D002516:Ceramics / Q000032:analysis*; D003469:Culture; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009549:Nigeria; D055110:Radiometric Dating
keywords: Bayesian statistics; archaeology; mixture model; pottery