ABSTRACT
'Pie-slice' is a computer package for quantitative assemblage comparison, which was developed at the Institute of Archaeology University College London. The program was conceived specifically with a view to the problems of multi-period urban sites comprising a number of complementary statistical tools, which provide a comprehensive analysis of the data. The manual data reduction is optional and, if exercised, precedes the computerised function, which is an integrated part of the program to prepare the data for the quasi-log-linear analysis and follows strict mathematical rules. Initial exploratory test runs demonstrated that the data set in its unmodified form was too large in terms of its variability, the calculations exceeded the computer facilities and the analysis was abandoned. Consequently the size of the data set was reduced manually by grouping values of variables based on archaeological criteria. With regard to the three variables — context, ware and form — the new records were treated in the way as the initial data set.
