Reinventing the Sherd: 25 Years of Pottery Statistics

Since 1975 there has been a lively debate about pottery statistics, with new approaches being suggested and their relative performances carefully scrutinised. Recent contributions, however, have a distinct air of deja vu, and could easily be mistaken for 1970s documents. So what has happened – are we condemned to a cycle of rediscovery every generation, or were the last 25 years a dead end? This question is approached by looking at what ceramic specialists want from statistics in general and quantification in particular. There seem to be several possible needs, for example: description of current assemblages, estimation of the parameters of past assemblages, emotional satisfaction, etc. It follows that no one measure is inherently ‘right’ or ‘best’ -“ it depends on what we want from it. But perhaps some ‘wants’ are more useful, achievable or creative than others.