Why Not a Bayesian Archaeology? Debunking Misconceptions about Bayesian Statistics

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Bayesian Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Bayesian inference has become a popular framework for statistical analyses across scientific fields in the past several decades, thanks to the development of software for generalized or specialized Bayesian modeling. With the logistical barriers to Bayesian inference becoming less onerous, a wide variety of Bayesian applications have started to appear in scientific fields, including archaeology. While increased exposure to myriad applications normalizes Bayesian statistics in archaeology, misconceptions about the nature and application of Bayesian methods to archaeological problems remain and get in the way of broader and creative applications in the field. Here, I explore and attempt to correct misunderstandings about (1) prior distributions, (2) how Bayesian statistics is performed, and (3) when is a Bayesian approach appropriate. By reducing anxieties surrounding the proper use of Bayesian statistics in archaeology, I hope to encourage further use of this approach to explore a wide variety of archaeological questions and to normalize the use of Bayesian inference in our research and models.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Bayesian Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32214