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Bwigg: An Internet facility for Bayesian radiocarbon wiggle-matching

2003; University of York; Issue: 13 Linguagem: Inglês

10.11141/ia.13.2

1363-5387

J. Andrés Christen,

Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

The integrated calibration of radiocarbon determinations and contextual information based on Bayesian statistical inference is known as 'Bayesian calibration'. Bayesian calibration was developed in the 1990s and there is software available, or under development, to perform various different types of applications: BCal, OxCal, Cal25 or CalPal; see also BCal, in Internet Archaeology. However, no software is available for performing fully Bayesian wiggle-matching including an outlier analysis. Wiggle-matching is used when a floating chronology of radiocarbon dates needs to be fixed in the calendar scale. In this article the technique of Bayesian wiggle-matching is outlined, including outlier considerations, and an explanation given of the type of results obtained. In particular the usage of the software Bwigg is described, an Internet-based software for Bayesian wiggle-matching. This article will particularly interest * Archaeological environmentalists * Dendrochronologists * Statisticians Key selling points * Presentation of a unique software for Bayesian wiggle matching * Explanation of the theory in simple and full technical mathematical terms