Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Peacock, Evan.

Committee Member

Hardin, James W.

Committee Member

Galaty, Michael L.

Date of Degree

5-4-2018

Document Type

Graduate Thesis - Open Access

Major

Applied Anthropology

Degree Name

Master of Arts

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures

Abstract

The “Lower Town” archaeological site in Mycenae, Argolis, Greece has been excavated since 2007 and multiple periods of occupation and abandonment are represented in the stratigraphy uncovered. Sedimentary deposits were grouped into two general categories during excavation and these categories shaped fieldwork decisions: yellow-orange sediment with denser artifact concentrations representing potential occupation and red sediment with sparser artifacts representing abandonment. The distributions of point locations of artifacts within these bodies of sediment are analyzed statistically for spatial homogeneity using Ripley’s K in a GIS environment to test these site formation assumptions. Statistically significant spatial clustering in artifacts is assumed for autochthonous occupation deposits. These analyses were designed to be used to explicitly test otherwise implicit assumptions during fieldwork in future fieldwork. Results are mixed, with several factors complicating the interpretation of results without the hindsight of postieldwork artifactual and geoarchaeological analyses.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/16878

Comments

Ripley's K||Site Formation Processes||Spatial Homogeneity||GIS||Mycenae||Spatial Statistics||Archaeology

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