Mathematics and archaeology
Archaeology is one of those privileged meeting grounds between the humanities and the "hard" sciences. Cutting-edge dating tools such as the carbon-14 method or dendrochronology rely on reliable sources, but these are not always available. Mathematics is then called upon and provides archaeologists with numerous tools, essentially statistical, such as Bayesian methods, to refine a dating. Correspondence analysis makes it possible to establish connections and links, and mathematical models make it possible to consider unusual viewpoints. Thus, some of them, combining human genetics and archaeology, have even made it possible to question the mode of expansion of populations and the myth of the great invasions.
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Waves of settlement
Mathematical models developed by mathematician Albert Ammerman and geneticist Luca Cavalli-Sforza, combining human genetics and archaeology, have challenged prevailing views of population expansion and the myth of great invasions.
Bayesian statistics applied to dating
When we think of the tools archaeologists use to date objects or events, radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology immediately spring to mind. Mathematical techniques based on probability are also used.
Chronology
To establish a chronology, archaeologists draw on a range of statistical models, including correspondence analysis. Monte Carlo numerical methods also come into play. Mathematics is becoming indispensable to archaeology!
Beneath the paving stones… maths
Counting, measuring and building: these were the mathematical aims of the ancients. To achieve them, they created instruments that archaeologists have since unearthed.
Dendrochronology
How was a harbor built in Roman times? When was this violin made? When was a mine's infrastructure built? Dendrochronologists seek to answer all these questions by precisely dating objects, structures, or remains containing wood.
Jean-Paul Benzécri, the father of correspondence analysis
Initially a mathematician, Jean-Paul Benzécri (born in 1932) turned to multivariate statistics.
Jean-Claude Gardin, a free-thinking archaeologist
Few books offer as critical an overview of the state of a discipline as Jean-Claude Gardin's Archéologie théorique, published by Hachette in 1979.
Invaluable statistical software
Bayesian statistics has become an essential technique for establishing a chronology of archaeological events.