SESSION 6 - Characterising lithic sources
Geostatistical models of an artifact relative frequency data and the sourcing of knappable materials

The aim of this presentation is to introduce and discuss an approach to sourcing a variety of knappable materials based on the use of geostatistical models of relative frequency data (i.e. percentage representation of toolstone classes in georeferenced artefact assemblages). This is particularly useful in areas where there is scarce information about both the variability of one or many toolstone classes represented in lithic assemblages across the regional space and the localization of their likely or actual sources. Such models are constructed using kriging interpolation under the assumption that continuous surfaces make the spatial information recovered from relatively few, scattered, and unevenly distributed sampling locations more intelligible.