Summary
This chapter is an account of the experiences of the two authors in routinely applying Bayesian statistics to sets of radiocarbon dates. Whereas Buck (Chapter 1) gives an account of the development of the mathematical models, this chapter is concerned with their implementation and routine use. Since the early 1990s radiocarbon data from a large number of archaeological sites have been analysed using Bayesian methods and this chapter provides an overview of the subject from an archaeological perspective. Using examples largely taken from English Heritage projects, the chapter demonstrates the usefulness of the technique, some of the pitfalls and problems encountered and areas for future research. The problems that arise when trying to apply rigorous mathematical methods to very complex models are discussed in relation to the developments of the computer program OxCal. Other perspectives on archaeological chronology building are given by Holst (Chapter 6) and Cichocki et al. (Chapter 4).
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Bayliss, A., Bronk Ramsey, C. (2004). Pragmatic Bayesians: a Decade of Integrating Radiocarbon Dates into Chronological Models. In: Buck, C.E., Millard, A.R. (eds) Tools for Constructing Chronologies. Lecture Notes in Statistics, vol 177. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0231-1_2
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