R is a free statistical programming language. It is extensively used in many disciplines, including Archaeology: it became a mighty tool to approach the growing amount of quantitative data in archaeological research. On 6th February 2019, the third day of the colloquium, participants will have the opportunity to attend the R workshop where they will work on real archaeological data and learn the application of advanced machine learning techniques.
In particular, we will focus on predictive modelling, or more precisely predictive mapping, as a prediction tool for archaeological site potential. The methodological basis of this application will be briefly discussed and statistical tools from the field will be introduced shortly. Then, we will intersect an archaeological data set (site information) with spatial environmental and land-use data and estimate and map the site potential using two methods (Generalized Linear Modelling and Naïve Bayes Classifier). Both results will be compared and the problem of overfitting machine learning procedures will be discussed.
Lecturer: Dr. Martin Hinz, University of Bern
If you want to join the workshop please make sure to choose it in your registration form.
Please note that a simultaneous participation in the R workshop and the field trip is not possible.
Requirements
Knowledge in R programming is of advantage, but not absolutely necessary. No actual introduction in R will take place, however, questions and problems that arise can be discussed ad hoc. At the end of the workshop, all participants should be able to perform predictive mapping.
Participants are requested to bring their own laptops with a working version of R. Information on installing R packages will follow.
