Archeofrag: an R package for Refitting and Spatial Analysis in Archaeology
Sébastien Plutniak · The Journal of Open Source Software · 2022
Distinguishing between spatial entities is fundamental in archaeology since archaeologists deal with spatial phenomena at multiple scales of analysis.During an excavation, objects are discovered within various types of spatial units e.g., stratigraphic layers, pits, hearths and houses.Spatial units are far from being raw data, and the identification and determination of their boundaries is the result of conjoint lines and methods of investigation, to name only a few: field observations, geoarchaeology, sedimentology, and the study of archaeological "refits".Refitting fragments belonged to the same object at some moment in the past.More precisely, archaeologists deduce former connection relationships from the symmetry and the possibility of contact of significantly large surface areas from two fragments, which can be physically adjusted (the fragments "refit").Here, "connection" is used as a shorthand to refer to the connection relationship that existed in the past between two areas of an object before they were broken into fragments.Archaeological refitting analysis has several aims: