PROBABILITY AND DATING

Statistical analysis is becoming much more widely used in conjunction with radiocarbon dating. In this paper I discuss the impact of Bayesia n analysis (using computer programs such as OxCal) on archaeological r esearch. In addition to simple analysis, the method has implications f or the planning of dating projects and the assessment of the reliabili ty of dates in their context. A new formalism for describing chronolog ical models is introduced here: the Chronological Query Language (CQL) , an extension of the model definitions found in the program OxCal. Ne w methods of Bayesian analysis can be used to overcome some of the inh erent biases in the uncertainty estimates of scientific dating methods . Most of these methods, including C-14, uranium series and thermolumi nescence a, tend to favor some calendar dates over others. C-14 calibr ation overcomes the problem where this is possible, but a Bayesian app roach can be used more generally.