130 4.

The Village and Its Catchment Area

Smith, C. E., Jr. West, R. C., N. P. Psuty, and B. G. Thom

1965 Flora, Tehuacan Valley. Fieldiana:Botony,
31 (4):107-143. Field Museum of Natural His·
tory, Chicago.
1967 Plant remains. In The prehistory of the
Tehuacdn Volley. Vol. 1. Environment and
subsistence, edited by D. S. Byers. Austin:
University of Texas Press. Pp. 220-255.
Virri, T. J.
1946 Maanjake-olojen Vaikutuksesta Maataloustuc·
tantous. Maatalous Agronomien Yhdistkysen
Julkaisa, pp. 6-11.
Vita-Finzi, C., and E. S. Higgs
1970 Prehistoric economy in the Mt. Carmel area
of Palestine: Site catchment analysis. Pro-
ceedings of the Prehistoric Society 36:1-37.
1969 The Tabasco lowlands of southeastern Mex-
ico. Baton Rouge: louisiana State University
Press.
Woodburn, J.
1968 An introduction to Hadza ecology. In Man
the hunter, edited by R. B. Lee and I. De-
Vore. Chicago: Aldine. Pp.49-55.
Zohary, D. Chapter 5
1969 The progenitors of wheat and barley in rela-
tion to domestication and agricultural disper-
sal in the Old World. In The domestication
and exploitation of plants and animals 1 edited
SAMPLING ON THE
by P. J. Ucko and G. W. Dimbleby. london:
Gerald Duckworth & Co. Pp. 47-66. REGIONAL LEVEL

Introduction ley. Rather than "sampling," these archeologists

In Chapter 3, we confronted the problem of
sampling whole communities. Now we must move
to the supracommunity or regional level, in which
the relationships of various communities to each
other must be considered. In this chapter, we will
deal with the problem, "How do I get an adequate
sample of sites?"-surely one of the earliest to be
faced by an archeologist starting a new project. In
later chapters, we will move to two more questions
in which Mesoamericanists have expressed an inter-
est: "What pattern is discernible in the distribution
of sites in my sample?" and "What was the prob-
able relationship between these sites and between
the social units that occupied them?"
Many Mesoamerican archeologists-among them
W. T. Sanders, R. S. MacNeish, J. R. Parsons, and
R.E. Blanton-have taken as their region an entire
highland valley, or a definable subdivision of a val-
have surveyed the entire region-field by field,
meter by meter, often using large-scale aerial pho-
tographs and multiple crews of five to six persons
each. They know they have an adequate sample
because they collect the entire site "universe" (in
statistical terms), setting aside for the moment the
obvious limitations of site preservation and human
error. This is the ideal. If every archeologist could
do this, we would not even have bothered to dis-
cuss sampling on the regional level in this chapter.
Unfortunately, most Mesoamerican archeologists
do not have budgets of $50,000 to $100,000; nor
do they have the time or the manpower to survey
entire valleys. Most must content themselves with
finding some percentage of the sites in their
chosen region-all the major ceremonial centers,
perhaps most of the larger villages, and some unde-
termined fraction of the tiny hamlets and seasonal
camps. If you ask them whether or not they have

131
132 5. Sampling on the Regional Level 5. Sampling on the Regional Level
133
Data collecting Our survey of the valley was not complete in that W. J. Mayer-Oakes and R. J. Nash had reo
systems the sense of a rigorous, careful, on-foot explo- design." Fortunately, he believes that he saw

~
cently presented, which R.M.A. was fond of mis-

/
Purposive or
1
Controlled Complete
ration of all the 'bottom lands.... Such a stag-
gering task was beyond our strength. [Willey
et 01.1965:576]
quoting (at least, S.G.S. and I agree that he was
frequently misquoting).
The argument began in the Quinta Las Rosas, a
Binford subjected to the ultimate put-down. He
tells the story often. In fact, he tells it every time
his Skeptical Graduate Student brings up the
subject of sampling.
'hunchI sampling sampling survey In this chapter, we will make two basic sugges- now-defunct "nocturnal center" on the outskirts "It was at the 1964 meetings of the American
tions, which we hope sound reasonable. First: If of Veracruz. The Quinta was famous for its colo-
I you can survey your entire region meter by meter, nial tile and for the fact that the shower was in the
Anthropological Association, held in Detroit," he
says. "Everybody was talking about Binford's
Random Systematic do so in preference to sampling. Second: If you center of the patio; customers who arrived before article. Well, Bill Mayer-Oakes and Ronald Nash
designs designs
can't do that-if, for example, you can only survey 9:00 P.M. were treated to a parade of 12 nubile had tried out some of his techniques on Bill

Random with
/ \ /
Random with
purposive systematic
stratification stratification
Nested or
hierarchical
designs
Figure 5.1 Diagram showing the relationships of differ-
ent kinds of sampling designs: from the ··-hundl" sampling
of the Real Mesoamerican Archeologist, through the con-
trolled sampling of his Skeptical Graduate Student, to the
complete surveys of Sanders, Parsons, and Blanton (see
text). [Redrawn from Haggett 1965:Table 7.2.]
an adequate sample, either they say "I hope so,"
or they shrug and say "I don't know." Both an-
swers are correct. They do hope so, and they don't
know.
One of the reasons they don't know is that their
reconnaissance amounts to what Peter Haggett
(1965) calls "purposive" or "hunch" sampling (see
Figure 5.1). Often, such surveys are strongly deter-
mined by where the good roads or clearings are,
where the local guides happen to have been, and
which mounds are visible the longest distance un-
der certain lighting conditions. Mesoamericanists
are well aware of the incompleteness of such sur-
veys, and usually very honest about them. A par-
ticularly frank statement by the very man most
often credited with inventing settlement pattern
studies comes to mind:
Systematic
a 20% sample-for heaven's sake, do it in such a
way that you have some idea of the reliability of
unaligned your results. One way to do that is by using some
designs kind of probability sampling. Admittedly, that
sounds as if it should take longer than the way you
were planning to do it. Believe it or not-as
Strat~ied Stephen Plog's section of this chapter perhaps
systematic
will demonstrate-it doesn't really take much more
unaligned
designs time than you were already planning to spend. The
real payoff, however, is that, if your survey is done
that way, there are further statistical manipula-
tions to which you can legitimately subject your
data; if not, your analysis ends there. In later sec-
tions, we will consider some of the further manip-
ulations possible with total or. systematically
sampled survey data (see, for example, pp. 236-248).
Probability Sampling and Regional Surveys
The Real Mesoamerican Archeologist doesn't
Ii ke probability sampling. He regards it as (7) a
waste of energy, (2) too time-eonsuming, (3) not
as reliable as his intuition, and (4) not applicable
to complex societies. He even has reservations
about applying it to such "simple" political units
as Formative villages. He and I have had acrimoni-
ous debates on the subject, neither of us backed
up by very much data or mathematical expertise,
and each of us continually harrassed by the Skepti-
cal Graduate Student, who claims to have both. I
really feel I should introduce this chapter by de-
scribing one classic argument we all had during the
1966 field season. It centered around a critique
young ladies scrubbing down behind a translucent
shower curtain, before their evening exercise.
lukewarm drinks were served in tile booths, under
ceiling fans that did little more than stir up the
tropical moths. Everyone in the place used eye
makeup, but it was particularly disturbing on the
male waiter, who also used spray glitter on his
temples. There was a 10o-record Wurlitzer in one
corner, and, in the subdued light, the patio took
on the look of a small basketball court redecorated
for fue senior prom. On one wall was a recessed
shrine with glowing altar candles and the hand-
lettered prayer: "Oh Thou who wert Conceived
without Sin, help us to Sin without Conceiving."
While the waiter filled our order, R.M.A. drew
on a paper napkin the outline of the Rio San
Jacinto drainage and the pattern of sites he had
found so far. Reaching the end of the paper, he
concluded, "and to the south, it looks as if there
were no more Formative sites-just Early Classic,
and some smail Post-Classicsites."
Near his elbow, the Skeptical Graduate Student
quickly added, "but we can't be sure of that
because our sample of sites is inadequate and our
survey so far has been very haphazard and
unsystematic. "
Now, short of calling attention to a whole pro-
jectile point on his backdirt pile, there is probably
no easier way to make a Reai Mesoamerican Ar-
cheologist angry than by telling him that his sur-
vey techniques are inadequate. In fact, R.M.A. is
still overheated from having read Binford's 1964
article "A consideration of archaeological research
Sanders' Teotihuacan survey area, and they
presented a critique ..." (Mayer-0akes and Nash
1964,1965).
At this point, the Skeptical Graduate Student
always rolls his eyes straight up at the ceiling and
shakes his head in disbelief. The action was not
lost on R.M.A., but he was interrupted by the
waiter, who had just brought three rum-and-cokes,
Three young ladies followed the waiter, circling
our table with little attempt at SUbterfuge. One
was clearly trying to see if R.M.A.'s lap would
support her full body weight; I doubted it, but I've
been wrong before.
"What Mayer-0akes and Nash did was to take
Bill Sanders' survey map of the Teotihuacan Val-
ley, showing the location of all 500-odd sites he
had found," R.M.A. went on. "To this, they ap-
plied the 'stratified random sampling program'
that Binford had recommended. First, the 750-sq.
km valley was divided into seven 'strata' or envi-
ronmental zones: the Rio San Juan delta, the
Patlachique Range, Cerro Gordo, the lower valley,
middle valley, upper valley, and northern valley.
They then gridded the whole map with squares
.6 km on a side, and selected a 20% sample of
those squares at random. The sample was allocated
so that various 'strata' received squares in propor-
tion to their area-more squares in the biggest
areas, and so on. Finally, they placed their grid
with its sample areas over the map of Sanders'
sites, to see how many they would have found."
He smiled triumphantly. "And you know what
they found? Do you know?"

~
,....
. :'. '::
_.'.:''1'';

134
remember, Maver-Oakes and Nash were rather
HI can't imagine."
temperate in their criticism, and even said, 'it
"They missed Teotihuacan. For God's sake, the
seems clear that Binford's theoretical framework
largest Pre-Columbian city in the New World, 20
and specific sampling techniques offer much of
sq km, an estimated 125,000 population, and they
interest and value to archeologists working
missed it. Now why, for God's sake, should I use a
technique that won't even find Teotihuacan? I
could find it with my eyes shut and my hands tied
behind my back."
"Yeah, it is hard to miss," I admitted.
"Well they did it. And what's more, as Mayer-
Oakes ~nd Nash pointed out, the 20%. stratified
random sample recovered none of Sanders' 'Proto-
Classic urban sites', none of his 'Cuanalan phase
large villages', and only one of his 'Zacatenco
phase hamlets'."
"Not too good, I guess."
R.M.A. adjusted his position slightly to accom-
modate the ample young lady who now occupied
his left knee. "And do you know what Mayer-
Oakes and Nash concluded?"
"Lay it on me."
"They said, and here I am going to quote them
exactly to the best of my memory, 'given the sa~e
amount of time, we believe that an archeolog~st
working by instinct (parenthesis) i.e., expertise
(close parenthesis) could certainly locate a greater
number of sites' (Mayer.Qakes and Nash 1965:16).
Now, isn't that what I do every day? Hell, I found
33 sites last week without a table of random
numbers."
The Real Mesoamerican Archeologist sat back in
satisfaction while we finished our rum-and-cokes
and ordered a round for our newly arrived com-
panions. We hadn't heard from the Skeptical Grad·
uate Student yet, which was unusual, but I figured
he was too smothered under the weight of the
young lady in his lap to reply. I was wrong, of
course; he's never that out of breath.
"I have never," said S.G.5., "heard such a gross
distortion of what went on at that session of the
meeting."
"How would you know? You weren't even born
yet."
"I was there," said S.GS. "That was back when
I was a Skeptical Undergraduate Student. As I
5. Sampling on the Regional Level
anywhere' (Mayer-Oakes and Nash 1965:21).
I wondered if Sonia, Rosa, and Yolanda were
taking notes. In fact, I was wondering how they
would score on a surprise quiz on sampling design.
"It seems to me," S.GS. went on, "that you and
several others who heard that talk have a complete
misconception of what a 20",.6 random sample is
supposed to do. Somehow you seem to think that
its purpose is to find a lot of sites-more than
Sanders could find in his total survey, or more
than I could find in a comparable period by racing
around the Teotihuacan Valley with a bag over my
head, picking up sherds,
"That isn't what it's supposed to do at all.
"And you, and many others, missed Binford's
most important comment, since itcame at the end
of the conference session during a three-way con-
versation between Mayer-Qakes, Deetz, and
Ascher."
"I don't remember a thing," said R.M.A.
"Mayer-Qakes had, in the interests of impartial
"Scholarship, provided Binford with a copy of his
results before the talk. It showed the following
recovery of sites by the 20% sample (Mayer.Qakes
and Nash 1965:13):
Aztec sites
(i) Urban-4
(ii) Rural-61
Toltec sites
(i) Urban-2
(ii) Rural-3D
Classic Teotihuacan sites
(i) Urban-1
(ii) Rural-23
(iii) Traces of occupation-11
Proto-elassic Hamlets-5
Cuanalan hamlets-1
Zacatenco hamlets-1
Pre-Classic hamlets-1
Preceramic sites-1
5. Sampling on the Regional Level
"These Binford communicated to the assembled
crowd."
"What a memory," I marveled.
"Then Binford compared these with the totals
for each type of site found by Sanders. And do
you know what?"
"I can already guess."
"Virtually every type of site recovered by the
20",£ stratified random sample-'rural Toltec sites',
'rural Aztec sites', and so on-was recovered in ap-
proximately the proportion it contributed to the
whole site universe. If one type of site made up,
say, 40% of the total 500-odd sites, it also made
up about 40",6 of the sites recovered by the sample.
As Binford put it: 'the results are an excellent con-
firmation of the value of stratified random
sampling'."
"Fantastic.'
"You see," S.G.S. went on, "what the critics
misunderstood was that probability sampling is
not a discovery technique. It isn't a better way to
find lots of sites. As Mayer-Oakes and Nash them-
selves said, 'we are not saying that Sanders has
done a better survey, because ... he has sampled
more than 20% of the area, and it is not as if we
can pit one approach against the other ... this is
about what we would find with 20% areal cover-,
age" [Mayer-Oakes and Nash 1965:14). Surveying
the entire area is always preferable to surveying
only 20% of it. But what you and most other
people do is survey about 20% in a haphazard
fashion. We can never know if you have recovered
each site type in the same frequency with which it
occurs in the total universe of sites. On the other
hand, if you took a 20% sample according to
probability sampling techniques, you could
multiply each type of site by 5 and have some
confidence-in fact, a mathematically definable
confidence-that the results would approximate
the real site universe."
R.M.A. sighed impatiently.
"A 20% random sample isn't designed to find
Teotihuacan," S.G.S. continued, "or any other
type of site that is unique or represented by only a
few examples. If, in a universe of 500 sites, there
135
are only five 'Zacatenco phase hamlets', then such
sites make up only 1% of the universe; the chances
are that, in a 20% sample, you would recover only
one of them. In the case of 'Cuanalan phase large
villages', there are only two in the whole universe;
small wonder the sample didn't recover any at all.
Probability sampling isn't the best way to find
sites-it's just the best way to get a representative
sample of sites, if you can't go for the whole
universe as Sanders did."
"It's too complicated and it takes too long,"
R.M.A. replied. "And as Mayer-Oakes and Nash
pointed out, 'increasing the areal coverage to find
the rarer types of sites is a waste of time and
resources'" (Mayer-Oakes and Nash 1%5:14).
"Why would it take any longer than your tech-
niques?" asked S.GS. "We spend most of our time
pushing the Jeep out of the mud anyway."
Sitting in the slowly moving shadow of the
ceiling fan, listening to Sonia prattle in one ear and
S.GS. in the other, I realized that opinions would
always differ on what had happened in Detroit.
Some people had gone away feeling vindicated,
pleased to hear that traditional survey techniques
would recover more sites, that probability sam-
pling wouldn't find unique features like Cuanalan
phase large villages or the Pyramid of the Sun.
Others had gone away convinced that only prob-
ability sampling would produce reliable, statis-
tically valid samples whose confidence levels could
be defined in mathematical terms. There was no
hope of rapprochement.
"Let's go home," J said, and R.M.A. rose
unsteadily.
"You go on," said S.G.S. "I'm staying to take
Rosa up on a very interesting suggestion she just
made."
"Her? You think she's the best in the place?"
R.M.A. demanded incredulously. "Don't you
think you should try a 20% stratified sample of
the whole universe of girls before you decide?"
"As an archeologist," smiled S.G.5., "my
instinct (parenthesis) i.e., expertise (close paren-
thesis) tells me that she is unique at the 99%
confidence level."
 136
All of which, I think, goes a long way toward
explaining the applicability of probability sam-
pling. There are times and places where your
knowledge is limited, and drawing a systematic
random sample is the only justifiable procedure. In
other times and places, with some prior knowl-
edge, your instincts tell you when you already
have a really great site.
~ In the section that follows, Stephen Plog attacks
the problem of sampling a completely unknown
valley. He uses the same approach as Maver-Oakes
and Nash: Three areas of the Valley of Oaxaca
which had previously been intensively surveyed are
"blanked out," and various sampling techniques
are applied to them. These include all four of the
major sampling techniques described by geogra-
Relative Efficiencies of sampling Techniques
for Archeological Surveys *
STEPHEN PLOG
Probability sampling is particularly useful in
archeological settlement pattern studies in Meso-
america, where archeologists rarely have the time,
money, Of desire to study the entire land area that
is the subject of their investigation. However,
many archeologists are reluctant to apply such
techniques because there have been almost no
objective tests of the efficiency of such sampling
programs (but see Maver-Oakes and Nash 1%5).
An intensive site survey of three blocks of land
in the Valley of Oaxaca during the summer of
1970 provided the opportunity to test four major
*The research described here was made possible by an
Undergraduate Research Participation Grant (GY-757 6)
from the National Science Foundation to the University
of Michigan (1970).
5. Sampling on the Regional Level
pher Peter Haggett-simple random, stratified, sys-
tematic, and stratified systematic unaligned. Plog
then evaluates the "efficiency" of the various sam-
pling techniques for predicting the total number of
sites from a 10% sample. Without giving away the
results, we can advise the Real Mesoamerican
Archeologist to be of good cheer: The simplest
and least sophisticated sampling techniques give
results that do not differ significantly from those
of more complex techniques. To the best of my
knowledge, this is the first time these four tech-
niques have been evaluated, relative to each other,
for their efficiency in recovering reliable samples
of Mesoamericanarcheological sites.
Of course, the 8-sq-km city of Monte Alban was
not found in any of Plog's samples. But then, it's
unique.
types of sampling strategies against "real" arche-
ological data. The three areas-located in the Etla,
Zaachila, and Valdeflores regions-were walked
field by field, and all sites were recorded. This
survey was conducted by D_ M. Varner, R. D.
Drennan, L. C. Kuttruff, and myself. The actual
experience of slogging through mud, wading rivers,
and climbing thorn-forested slopes provided an
appreciation for the practical cifficulties of Meso-
american surveys which, I hope, prevents this sec-
tion of the chapter from being an exercise in
"ivory tower" archeology.
Basically, what I have done is to "blank out" the
three survey areas, "sample" them by several dif-
ferent strategies, and then compare the results of
the sampling with the actual pattern of sites we
Relative Efficiencies of Sampling Techniques
•• • ~olume). All four are defined in simple terms and
•• •
• • • ••
• ••
•• • 1965:195-196):
•
• • • • • •
• • • chosen by a pair of random co-ordinates.For
• • • • • example, the random numbers ninety-eight and
• • • • • • ••
• units north by twenty-six units east; or a grid
• • • • • • • •
c •
•
·d • •
Figure 5.2 Alternative sampling designs. (a) Simple ran-
dom; (b) stratified random; (c) systematic; (d) stratified
s~stematic unaligned. '[Redrawn from Haggett 1965:
Flgure.7.4.]
found. The efficiency of each technique-relative
to alternative technlques-cls judged in terms of the
precision with which a 10% sample would make
possible a prediction of the total number of sites
in each survey area.
.In this section, I will describe the sampling tech-
niques to be used in the tests, and discuss their
nonstatistical and statistical advantages and dis-
advantages, both in theory and in practice.
Second, the data to be used for the tests will be
discussed. Third, a series of sampling tests will be
run o.n the data. The effect of different sampling
techniques on the estimation of a population
parameter will be examined. Also, an attempt will
be made to determine the effects of settlement
pattern and site size on the estimation.
The Four Types of Sampling Designs
The four types of samples taken were Simple ran-
dom, stratified, systematic, and stratified system-
atic unaligned. Two of these sampling techniques
137
already have been mentioned in Chapter 3 (this
Illustrated graphically by geographer Peter Hag-
gett, w~ose diagram we have reproduced as Figure
5.2. HIS definitions are as follows (Haggett
(i) In simple random sampling a sample of N
individuals is drawn fromthe areal population
at a series of random co*ordinates. The two
axes of the area are numbered and a location is
twenty-six ,would .give a location ninety-eight
reference of 9826 in terms of a standard refer-
ence system. (Fig. 5.2a) shows the location of
twenty-four points drawn by simple random
sampling for a hypothetical study area.
(ii) In stratified sampling the study area is
divided into natural segments (such as cropland
and woodland) and the individuals in the sam-
ple are drawn independently from each seg_
rnent, Within each segment the location of the
points is determined by the same rendomtza-
tion procedure as in simple random sampling
(Fig. 5.2b) shows such a sample for twenty:
four points. In this case the number of indi-
viduals has in each segment been made
proportional to its area; sixteen points in the
left-hand segment [two-thlrds of the area) and
eight points in the right-hand segment
(one-third of the area).
(iii) In systematic sampling a grid of equally
spaced locations is defined with one individual
at each location. (Fig. 5.2c) shows a simple
case for twenty-five individuals. Here the grid is
square and at righ t angles to the sides of the
study area. The origin of the grid is decided by
the randomization of the original grid point.
(iv) A stratified systematic unaligned sample
(Fig. 5.2d) is a composite design'derived from
the preceding sampling designs by Berry
(1962:7) with the theoretical advantages of
(a) randomization, and (b) stratification to-
gether with the useful aspects of (c) systematic
samples. By avoiding alignment of the sample
points, it also avoids the possibility of error
caused by periodicities in the phenomena. . . .
The study area ... is systematically divided
into a regular checkerboard of sub-areas. Be-
ginning with the corner sub-area, a point, I, is