Unsupervised Classification of Neolithic Pottery From the Northern Alpine Space Using t-SNE and HDBSCAN
Terms of “Neolithic cultures” are still used to describe spatial and temporal differences in pottery styles across central Europe. These terms date back to research periods when absolute dating methods were lacking and typological classification was used to establish chronologies. Those terms are ch...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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De Gruyter
2022-12-01
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| Series: | Open Archaeology |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2022-0274 |
| _version_ | 1797947741068853248 |
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| author | Hinz Martin Heitz Caroline |
| author_facet | Hinz Martin Heitz Caroline |
| author_sort | Hinz Martin |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Terms of “Neolithic cultures” are still used to describe spatial and temporal differences in pottery styles across central Europe. These terms date back to research periods when absolute dating methods were lacking and typological classification was used to establish chronologies. Those terms are charged with problematic, biasing notions of social configurations: cultural homogeneity, spatial boundedness, and immobility. In this article, we present an alternative approach to pottery classification by using ceramics from dendrochronologically and C14-dated sites of the 40th–38th c. BC located in the northern Alpine Foreland. The newly developed methodology uses a computational unsupervised classification based on profile shape and additional nominal characteristics using t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding and Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise for cluster analyses. Its role in our project was to provide a quantitative, algorithm-based approach to classify large datasets of pottery while simultaneously account for a large number of variables. This enabled us to find similarity structures that would escape human cognitive capacities on which typological classification is based on. It formed one pilar of a mixed method research approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods of pottery classification. Our results show that the premises of cultural homogeneity are untenable but can be methodologically overcome by using the proposed classification approaches. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-10T21:31:33Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-48343de501df48e4a15bcac31ae6237c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2300-6560 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-10T21:31:33Z |
| publishDate | 2022-12-01 |
| publisher | De Gruyter |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Open Archaeology |
| spelling | doaj.art-48343de501df48e4a15bcac31ae6237c2023-01-19T13:20:28ZengDe GruyterOpen Archaeology2300-65602022-12-01811183121710.1515/opar-2022-0274Unsupervised Classification of Neolithic Pottery From the Northern Alpine Space Using t-SNE and HDBSCANHinz Martin0Heitz Caroline1Department for Prehistoric Archaeology, and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (OCCR), Institute of Archaeological Sciences, University of Bern, Bern, SwitzerlandInstitute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology, CRC 1266 ‘Scales of Transformations – Human-Environmental Interaction in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies’, Kiel University, Kiel, GermanyTerms of “Neolithic cultures” are still used to describe spatial and temporal differences in pottery styles across central Europe. These terms date back to research periods when absolute dating methods were lacking and typological classification was used to establish chronologies. Those terms are charged with problematic, biasing notions of social configurations: cultural homogeneity, spatial boundedness, and immobility. In this article, we present an alternative approach to pottery classification by using ceramics from dendrochronologically and C14-dated sites of the 40th–38th c. BC located in the northern Alpine Foreland. The newly developed methodology uses a computational unsupervised classification based on profile shape and additional nominal characteristics using t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding and Hierarchical Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise for cluster analyses. Its role in our project was to provide a quantitative, algorithm-based approach to classify large datasets of pottery while simultaneously account for a large number of variables. This enabled us to find similarity structures that would escape human cognitive capacities on which typological classification is based on. It formed one pilar of a mixed method research approach combining qualitative and quantitative methods of pottery classification. Our results show that the premises of cultural homogeneity are untenable but can be methodologically overcome by using the proposed classification approaches.https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2022-0274unsupervised classification, morphometrics, ceramic analysis, hdbscan, t-sne |
| spellingShingle | Hinz Martin Heitz Caroline Unsupervised Classification of Neolithic Pottery From the Northern Alpine Space Using t-SNE and HDBSCAN Open Archaeology unsupervised classification, morphometrics, ceramic analysis, hdbscan, t-sne |
| title | Unsupervised Classification of Neolithic Pottery From the Northern Alpine Space Using t-SNE and HDBSCAN |
| title_full | Unsupervised Classification of Neolithic Pottery From the Northern Alpine Space Using t-SNE and HDBSCAN |
| title_fullStr | Unsupervised Classification of Neolithic Pottery From the Northern Alpine Space Using t-SNE and HDBSCAN |
| title_full_unstemmed | Unsupervised Classification of Neolithic Pottery From the Northern Alpine Space Using t-SNE and HDBSCAN |
| title_short | Unsupervised Classification of Neolithic Pottery From the Northern Alpine Space Using t-SNE and HDBSCAN |
| title_sort | unsupervised classification of neolithic pottery from the northern alpine space using t sne and hdbscan |
| topic | unsupervised classification, morphometrics, ceramic analysis, hdbscan, t-sne |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2022-0274 |
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