Look at "Objects of Change" by J. Daniel Rogers (1990 Smithsonian Press).
In his analysis of artifacts he uses Q-analysis (also referred to as
polyhedral dynamics) to develop a typological hierarchy that can assign one
object to multiple activities. This is taken from work by Ronald Aitkin
and others. This appraoch has not been much used in archeology but seems
related to your concerns.
Charles Cheek
-----Original Message-----
From: Nicholas Gessler [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, November 06, 1998 4:28 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: dynamic taxonomy and typology
Importance: High
I've been away from practicing archaeology for awhile, off in the world of
computation, and I wonder if anyone could point me to the literature in
archaeology which deals with, what I would call:
dynamic taxonomy or typology
categorization on the fly
I am looking to a departure from the classical taxonomic schemes that try
to
fit each artifact into a single taxon. Certainly this has advantages for
the numerical comparison of assemblages but it tends to obscure the fact
that each artifact may simultaneously participate in several different
functions (or processes). [I consider function or process to include
informational as well as material-energenetic action.] In plain English,
an
assemblage of artifacts may be classified in various ways depending upon
the
perceptions and goals of the potential user, and we may wish to capture
these variations in some representational scheme. One such scheme might be
(logically) to consider the primitive foundation of an assemblage as a
collection of artifacts with a high number of attributes. How the creators
of that assemblage, and we as its analyzers, might view or use it at any
particular time, could be defined as the imposition of some structure to
that data. More abstractly, a type (for a particular purpose) could then
be
defined as a cluster in some high dimensional hyperspace. This might make
the comparison of assemblages more difficult, but it capture the practices
of multiple-use and re-use. e.g. I can pound my tent-stakes in with a
hammer, a rock, a piece of firewood, or my copy of Sokal and Sneath.)
I am considering building a computational model of such a system and I'm
looking for other references to the problem, both critical and theoretical.
Thanks in advance...
Nick
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