Escribano-Ruiz, Sergio <br/><br/>
Estrategias cuantitativas para el estudio de cerámica arqueológica. Una propuesta desde el caso de la cerámica histórica alavesa / 
Sergio Escribano-Ruiz. 
 -- Donostia:   Aranzadi Zientzia Elkartea,   2017 
 - Páginas 289-300 
 - 2017 
 -  68 .
 (Munibe Antropologia-Arkeologia).
<br/><br/> Apenas existen trabajos explícitos sobre técnicas de cuantificación aplicadas a la cerámica arqueológica publicados en castellano. Por ello, el objetivo de este artículo es proporcionar un ejemplo testado y razonado de estrategia de cuantificación diseñada para estudiar una muestra cerámica determinada. En este trabajo se abarcan el diseño estadístico conceptual, los parámetros de confección de la muestra y<br/>la discusión sobre las técnicas cuantitativas empleadas. Por un lado, tratamos de conceptualizar cómo las unidades de excavación se convierten en unidades estadísticas y proponemos un protocolo selectivo de contextos para confeccionar una muestra cerámica libre de grandes<br/>distorsiones generadas por los procesos de formación del registro arqueológico. Por otro lado, discutimos las técnicas cuantitativas utilizadas y justificamos la aportación de cada una de ellas. Finalmente, argumentamos que el procedimiento de trabajo descrito permite crear indicadores cronológicos que pueden ser extrapolables a otros trabajos y ámbitos geográficos.  There is a lack of Spanish literature explicitly concerning quantification techniques applied to archaeological pottery. That is why this paper aims to provide a tested and reasoned example of a quantification strategy designed to study a concrete pottery sample, recovered in Araba and dating back to 14th to 17th centuries. This work covers both the conceptual statistical design, as the parameters to create the sample and<br/>the discussion about the suitability of the different quantification techniques to be used. First we try to conceptualize how excavation units are converted into statistical units and then propose a protocol for selecting the contexts that will be part of the sample by minimizing taphonomic biases. Then we discuss the quantification techniques used in our study and justify the contribution of each of them. Finally, we argue that proposed working procedure enables creating chronological indicators ready to be used in other studies and geographical areas.<br/>In summary, our proposal stresses the importance of studying contextualized pottery, which implies either using only pottery recovered at archaeological excavations to build a sample, either making the stratigraphic context the unit of statistic reference. We enhance that selected contexts should be as free of biases caused by the formation processes of the archaeological record as possible. In accordance we set up a<br/>selective proposal that deals with qualitative and quantitative aspects of the sample making process. Nonetheless, the core proposal of this work is a dual quantification system to answer the questions posed both by the systemic and the archaeological context of pottery. For the first aspect we propose the use of descriptive quantification techniques, in order to calculate the fragmentation index of any assemblage, and an estimative one, Minimum Number of Individuals, for the second. Last, but not least, we put forward a central question when talking about<br/>samples and sampling. Are our results significant and, so that, comparable? By means of a practical example we illustrate the significance of the sample and, then, propose a way to make it comparable to any other sample whatever its size or geographical location. 
<br/><br/>ISSN 1132-2217 eISSN 2172-4555 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Topical Terms: </label><br/>Muestreo<br/>Cuantificación<br/>Cultura material<br/>Periodo Tardo medieval<br/>Edad Moderna Temprana