Analytical Archaeology [antikvár]

Foreword to the revised edition During the early months of 1976 David Clarke began planning a second, revised edition of this book. By academic standards the first edition had been a great publishing success and all copies printed in Britain had been sold. But the demand for the book had continued, with second-hand copies fetching high prices. His intention was to reduce the volume by over 200 pages, remove outdated aspects and repetitive passages, summarize overlengthy sections, improve the prose style where it was obscure and write two new chapters. He agreed with the publishers that the revised edition would be submitted to them in the autumn and asked me to assist him with much of the preliminary work. We discussed the general areas of revision which were thought necessary and I started to work on the book after Easter. After his death at the end of June 1976 I consulted both the publishers and Mrs Stella Clarke about the revision. Both agreed that they wished it to go ahead, although it could not be in exactly the same form as had been planned. David's own personal papers were of little help, since like with many other subjects he carried most of the ideas in his head and what was jotted down in note form was heavily condensed or illegible! The book clearly breaks down into two parts, theory and methods, and although both have been developed in the last ten years it has been the methods that have undergone the most drastic changes. There are important recent works on the use of computer and mathematical models (Doran and Hodson 1975) and on the appHcation of quantitative techniques of spatial analysis derived from contemporary geography (Hodder and Orton 1975). Many of the suggestions and examples contained in chapters 11-13 of the first edition have been pursued by other archaeologists in different areas of the world and in order to do justice to this work at least two, if not