ABSTRACT

A main characteristic of archaeology is that we have to deal not only with high complexity phenomena like culture, society, and economic aspects of the past, but also with imprecise and heterogeneous datasets. The archaeological record is generally incomplete, depending on the quality of conservation, even when accurately documented. When performing quantitative analyses it is like always working on samples. The archaeological record is extremely heterogeneous and therefore trying to understand history from material culture appears as an extremely complex matter.