5. Concluding remarks: correspondence analysis and digital data

This study highlights both the potential and pitfalls of using correspondence analysis to conduct intra-site analysis of pottery consumption at archaeological sites. Several seemingly meaningful patterns were identified through CA of spatial and stratigraphic associations of different pottery vessels, including likely evidence for suites of functionally similar vessels being used and deposited together, in addition to consumption hot-spots within the site. CA also provided a means of distinguishing assemblages formed through everyday household disposal practices from more unusual examples relating to rarer (yet recurrent) forms of ritual practice. Indeed, without CA the isolation of such trends would have required disproportionately more effort using conventional forms of analysis. Even GIS is currently limited in relation to CA in its capacity to display complex assemblage information. However, using CA to conduct intra-site analysis is not without its problems. The more complex patterning identified here (e.g. the suites of vessels) required further verification with the original spreadsheet data, as the basis of clusters of vessels and assemblages in CA was not always simple to interpret through visual examination. CA can only offer an alternative means of describing assemblages, as an aid rather than an end to the interpretation process, and consequently can never replace standard means of tabulating finds data, especially when used in conjunction with large excavated sites yielding hundreds of well-stratified and dated deposits, when the method is most effective.

Finally, the facility to manipulate, re-describe and filter digital data according to the specific research interests of the author was of great assistance in the construction of a site narrative based on the consumption and deposition of pottery. As the quantity of graphs and tables produced here demonstrate, there are potentially infinite ways of describing and presenting assemblage data that are not readily accessible through conventional forms of archaeological publishing (i.e. the paper-based excavation report). The consistent provision of digital databases and/or spreadsheets in future excavation reports would greatly increase the research potential of such literature. Whereas this article was limited primarily to ceramic evidence, the ability to compare all classes of material evidence in this manner would offer even greater interpretative potential in the future.

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