Page 49 - Lungshan Pottery Lunshanoid Research 1977 Paper

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structure and relations in the data. It is a tool of

discovery" ( 1 9 7 3 * 4 ) .

According to Sokal and Sneath ( 1 9 6 3 * 1 2 0 ) , and M.R.

Anderberg ( 1 9 7 3 * 1 1 ) * "data units" are the logical

fundamental units in a large majority of individual or-

ganisms and can be looked at in terms of "subject",

"observation", "case", "element", "object", or "event".

Consequently, in archaeological applications, stone arti-

facts, pottery type, design element, or even the archaeo-

logical site can frequently be used as data units or OTU

(operational taxonomic units). The other basic term in

the use of cluster analysis is "variable". The distance

of the difference or the degree of the resemblance among

the data units must be consistently described in terms of

their characteristics, attributes, class memberships,

traits, and other such properties. Collectively, these

descriptors are called "variables". The resemblance of

data units completely depends on the values of a l l the

variables. One very important and basic axiom in this

technique of analysis is that every character (variable)
is treated as having equal weight. Thus, i t is possible

to describe the data unit by calculating the value of the