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Comparative Archaeology Database, University of Pittsburgh
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Nepeña Valley Dataset |
The data files UNITINFO.TXT and UNITINFO.XLS provide information about the location, area, and ceramic counts and densities of each survey unit in the study area. UNITINFO.TXT is a comma delimited ASCII text file, while UNITINFO.XLS contains the same data in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. Each line in the ASCII file corresponds to one survey unit. There are 2952 lines, each with 9 variables separated by commas. The variables are listed in the following order:
| 1 | Survey unit number. The designated ID for each survey unit. Numbers 206, 240, 241, 336, 488, 527, 863, 1038, 1333, 1336, 1372, 1778, and 2117 were elimitated from the database because after analysis the number of sherds collected were lower than the minimum required (see pages 53-54 of the dissertation associated with this dataset). |
| 2 | Area. The area of the survey unit in hectares. |
| 3 | Type of vegetation cover: none, bushes, fruit-trees, maize, manioc, sugarcane, thick forest, vines, wildgrass, other. |
| 4 | Degree of visibility. VG=Very Good G=Good F=Fair P=Poor |
| 5 | Type of location: hillslope, hilltop, pampa, quebrada, valley-floor. |
| 6 | Sampling mode. Systematic sampling involved the selection of one or more sampling areas in which all sherds were collected until a minimum of 25 was obtained. General collections were taken in areas with surface artifacts densities lower than 1 sherd/sq m. In general collections, the survey team collected artifacts from the whole survey unit until a minimum of 25 was collected or more than 5 to 7 minutes has been invested in the task (see pages 50-51 of the dissertation associated with this database). |
| 7 | Area of systematic sampling (square meters). |
| 8 | Total number of sherds in surface. For systematic collections it refers to the total count of sherds collected from a sampling area (variable 7). For general collections it refers to the total count of sherds collected from the whole survey unit. Survey units with counts of zero refer to those units that were recorded because other kinds of remains were important to record (i.e. architecture). |
| 9 | Density (sherds per square meter). For systematic collections it was obtained by dividing the total number of sherds (variable 8) by the area of sampling (variable 7). For general collections with a total number of sherds of eleven or more, a density of 0.25 sherds/sq m was assigned. For general collections with ten sherds or less, a density of 0.1 sherds/sq m was assigned (see pages 80-81 of the dissertation associated with this dataset). |
The first line of the ASCII text file, for example, looks like this:
1,0.439,None,VG,Hillslope,systematic,15.93,84,5.27
This means that the survey unit number is 1, which has an area of 0.439 hectares. There was no vegetation and visibility was very good. The survey units was located on a hillslope. The collection carried out was systematic over an area of 15.93 meters, which recovered 84 sherds, for a sherd density of 5.27 sherds per square meter.
The last, or 2952 line of the ASCII text file is:
2965,0.899,None,G,Hillslope,general,,7,0.1
This means that the survey unit number is 2965, which has an area of 0.899 hectares. There was no vegetation and visibility was good. The survey units was located on a hillslope. The collection carried out was general, therefore no area for a collection circle is provided. Seven sherds were recovered, and it was estimated that the sherd density was 0.1 sherds per square meter.
Download the file UNITINFO.TXT (136 KB) or the file UNITINFO.XLS (402 KB).