Any plant experts on the forum?

[Adrian]

I think there's a reasonable chance we could narrow it down to the Europeish area Mo. Does that help any?

[ObKrieger]

haha, Well it seems that I will likely never know, since I can only say that this helmet wasn't used in the Pacific. lol

Another archaeologist question: I will probably never get the chance to try this, but I don't suppose 70 years old falls within the accurate range for any sort of radiometric dating methods, does it Jerry?

[Jerry B]

Even with the refinements from 'wiggle' dating, C14 is not usually that accurate and it would also be very close to the A bomb blasts which have massively increased the radiation levels for everything post 1945. The helmet is a better indicator of date for the cereal remains than the cereal is for dating the helmet.

New work with 'Bayesian' statistics would also probably not help because of the remains fairly recent origin, though they have helped to considerably refine the chronology of the advent of the Neolithic in Western Europe and the UK.

[ObKrieger]

Bayesian statistics? I have never heard of that before, would you mind explaining it to me?

[Stewy S]

Barley for me too. Stewy

[Jerry B]

Bayesian statistics? I have never heard of that before, would you mind explaining it to me?

Bayesian statistics is that subset of the entire field of statistics in which the evidence about the true state of the world is expressed in terms of degrees of belief or, more specifically, Bayesian probabilities. Such an interpretation is only one of a number of interpretations of probability and there are many other statistical techiques that are not based on "degrees of belief".

Bayesian inference is an approach to statistical inference, that is distinct from the more traditional frequentist inference. It is specifically based on the use of Bayesian probabilities to summarise evidence.

The formulation of statistical models for use in Bayesian statistics has the additional feature, not present with other types of statistical techniques, of requiring the formulation of a set of prior distributions for any unknown parameters. Such prior distributions are as much part of the statistical model as the part that expresses the probability distribution of observations given the model parameters. The specification of a set of prior distributions for a problem may involve hyperparameters and hyperprior distributions.

The usual considerations in the design of experiments are extended in the case of Bayesian design of experiments to include the influence of prior beliefs. Importantly, the application of sequential analysis techiques allows the outcome of earlier experiments to influence the design of the next experiment, based on the updating of beliefs as expressed by the prior and posterior distribution. Part of the problem of the design of experiments is that they should make good use of resources of all types: one example of the Bayesian design of experiments aimed at such efficiency is the multi-armed bandit problem.

Statistical graphics includes methods for data exploration, for model validation, etc.. The use of certain modern computational techniques for Bayesian inference, specifically the various types of Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques, have led to the need for checks, often made in graphical form, on the validity of such computations in expressing the required posterior distributions.(Copied from Wikipedia.)

I hope that the above has made it clear to you Mo.

[Woolgar]

Barley for me too. Stewy

Are you sure its not a repro Stewy ?

Nick

[Jerry B]

Are you sure its not a repro Stewy ?

Nick

Maybe it was planted to give credence to it being original

[Stewy S]

Are you sure its not a repro Stewy ?

Nick

Possibly Nick. I'd like to see a pic of the reverse to be sure though. Stewy

[Woolgar]

Possibly Nick. I'd like to see a pic of the reverse to be sure though. Stewy

Ha! Ha! Ha!