چکیده:
One of the most important achievements of New Archaeology was a tendency toward application of variables and statistical
analysis in archaeological research. Each statistical method should be applied to certain areas of archaeological studies; it is important
to extract biological, economic, social and cultural information properly via statistical methods. In this study, which is a review through
previously published research, articles in which multivariate statistical method are applied in archaeological investigations have been
extracted from three worldwide databases, i.e. PubMed, Scopus and Science Direct, based on a protocol designed to search for related
articles from January 2000 to January 2016. After application of inclusion and exclusion criteria, finally 384 articles were selected
for this investigation. All of the 384 articles were classified based on multivariate statistical methods and then the application of these
methods in archaeology and cultural material types was determined. They show that methods, including Cluster analysis, Principal
Component Analysis, Discriminant Analysis, Multivariate Multiple Regression, Factor Analysis and Multidimensional Scaling have
had respectively the highest application in archaeological investigations. The results of this systematic review indicate that cluster
analysis is one of the most applied statistical analysis, perhaps because of usage, method and simple interpretation, compared to other
methods of data reduction. This method is used for data reduction or clustering archaeological sites based on their similarities and
helps with the comparison between site structures. Principle Component Analysis is the second most widely used methods due to its
application in any data structure and simplicity of interpretation compared to other methods of dimensionality reduction.
خلاصه ماشینی:
In this study, which is a review through previously published research, articles in which multivariate statistical method are applied in archaeological investigations have been extracted from three worldwide databases, i.
They show that methods, including Cluster analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Discriminant Analysis, Multivariate Multiple Regression, Factor Analysis and Multidimensional Scaling have had respectively the highest application in archaeological investigations.
For example, multivariate statistical methods and cluster analysis are commonly used in classification of archaeological sites which have most resemblances based on the measured variables; on the other hand, they could be applied in investigations of cultural interactions.
Advanced statistical methods are also often used in archaeology: cluster analysis, factor analysis, principal components analysis, discriminant analysis, multidimensional scaling, multivariate regression, and others (Drennan 2009).
Materials and Methods In this study, which is a review through previously published research, articles in which multivariate statistical method is applied in archaeological investigations have been extracted from three worldwide databases, i.
Table 1: Search strategy Search strategy in PubMed/ Scopus/Science Direct (("Archeology"[MeSH Terms] OR "anthropology" [MeSH Terms]) AND ("multivariate analysis" [ MeSH Terms ] OR "complicated statistical tools" [Text Word]) OR ("cluster analysis"[MeSH Term]) OR "factor analysis"[ MeSH Term]) OR "principal components analysis"[MeSH Term]) OR "discriminant analysis"[MeSH Term]) OR "multidimensional scaling"[Text Word]) OR "multiple regression"[MeSH Term]) OR "multivariate regression"[MeSH Term])) AND language ( English ) AND ( Filters: Publication date from 2000/01/01 to so far ) Results Using the strategy described above, a total of 4520 articles were retrieved from the three databases mentioned.
It shows that methods, including Cluster analysis, Principal Component Analysis, Discriminant Analysis, Multivariate Multiple Regression, Factor Analysis and Multidimensional Scaling have had respectively the highest application in archaeological investigations.