Page 372 - Green - Maritime Archaeology: A Technical Handbook. 2nd ed

Chapter 13: Post-Excavation Research 351
essentially the purpose is to establish a synthesis of the artifacts. It is inevitable that the archaeological record will almost certainly be incom- plete; many items will have decayed or been destroyed and many of the fragile types of items only rarely survive. In the historical period, where written records survive, there is a strong case for the fusion of historical and archaeological research. This type of approach is best illustrated in the Amsterdam project (Gawronski, 1985, 1986, 1987) and the issue of the interaction between material, written and iconographic, sources has been widely discussed in these publications (see, for example, Kist, Parthesius, and Gawronski in Gawronski, 1985, 1986, 1987).
Where written records do not survive, or are only available in limited quantity, the problem is different. In some cases there will be an historical interpretation of the existing evidence and this may or may not coincide with the material record. For example, until recently it was held that ancient Chinese shipbuilding traditions were confined to ships with flat bottoms and no keel. This belief was held because, although the limited written Chinese sources were obscure, from 19th century evidence they could be interpreted in this way. The recent discovery of two 13th–14th century ship structures has shown that the Chinese did in fact build ships with a deep V hull and a keel.
III. SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS
There are a number of different scientific techniques that can be used to assist in the analysis of archaeological material. One of the most commonly used techniques is the application of quantitative methods to the analysis of data. Doran and Hodson (1975), Orton (1980), and Shennan (1988) are important reference books on the subject. Quantitative methods can be used by the archaeologist to help analyze the archaeological data and to find patterns and relationships within the record. For example, a statistical analysis of measurements from a survey can be used to determine the reli- ability of those measurements. Muckelroy (1978) made an analysis of types of wreck sites, examining the statistical relationship between the physical conditions on the site and the archaeological remains. However, statistics is a difficult technique to use because both mathematical and factual consid- erations are involved and the relationships that are being looked for are never perfect.
The two other main forms of scientific analysis are dating methods and material analysis. There are several different methods of dating includ- ing radiocarbon, thermoluminescent (Aitkin, 1985), dendochronology (Fletcher, 1978), and thermoremnant magnetic dating (Aitkin, 1978). All