Some Statistical Remarks on Classification of Weapons Deposited in Graves
Some Statistical Remarks on Classification of Weapons Deposited in Graves

Summary/Abstract: When they are discovered in tombs, weapons provide complex assessments on the deceased and the society from which they come. Largely speaking, the structure of funerary inventory is a result of a wide variety of phenomena (fashion, sex, status, beliefs, technology, etc.) or circumstances (natural hazards, disease, damage caused by humans). It is also recognized their role as bearers of social or ideological messages. A complete “reverse engineering” is most often impossible, however traditional analysis based on typology and the study of the distribution of types may reveal a part of the basic funerary behavior patterns valid for a community at a time. To refine the interpretation we would have to overcome barriers of the traditional definition of types, seen as groups of interrelated objects with consistent similar features which may have social and/or spatial and temporal significance. The present paper is devoted to a vision of organizing knowledge from the funerary space as a process by which objects associated with the deceased are differentiated in natural categories (rather than subjective) so that specific relationships can be subsequently recognized. This cognitive process will be illustrated based on the analyses of the weapons deposited in some Iron Age graves from the sub-Carpathian area.

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