In Exercise 2, the Data Types module teaches students how data are conceptually organized, using examples of archaeological research to illustrate the points. For example, the remains of a house provide an interactive lesson on how data are categorized:

Screen shot of the floor plan of the house

Another screen shot, showing the data types found in the house

Exercise 3.1 focuses on sampling methodologies, and uses an interactive computer simulation of the survey of the Basin of Mexico:

Screen shot of the introduction to the exercise

Students are allotted a certain amount of money that they use to fund a survey of the Basin of Mexico. After devising a budget, they must select a sampling strategy for their survey:

Screen shot showing a typical survey budget

Shot showing how students select the sampling strategy

Based on the students' decisions, the software simulates the survey and provides them with the results:

Another screen shot showing the sampled areas of the Basin

After they have generated the data from their survey, the students have several statistical tools that they can employ to analyze and interpret their results:

Shot showing some of the statistical tools available to students

In Exercise 3.2, students build an understanding of how past behaviors are reconstructed with the assistance of statistical analyses. The module especially focuses on faunal analysis, examining butchering strategies and utility indices:

Screen shot showing utility of the parts of a bighorn sheep

To illustrate its points, the software again engages the students in a simulation that demonstrates what would remain in the archaeological record after several hunting trips:

Screen introducing the simulation

Students are presented with a simulated hunt, and must select the butchering strategy, including the exact parts of the animals to be returned to the main camp:

Example of the screen during the simulation

Screen shot showing the results of a simulated hunt

Another screen shot showing the results of a hunt

After several hunting trips, the students can view and analyze the resulting faunal assemblage, thereby illustrating how statistical analyses can be used to reconstruct human behavior:

A screen shot showing the faunal remains from the simulated hunts

Summaries of the faunal remains from the simulation

Screen shot showing a typical graph reflecting a gourment utility strategy

Exercise 3.3 examines the uses of ratios and indices for reconstructing past human behavior. Like the previous exercise, this module focuses on techniques used in faunal analysis to illustrate its points. However, in this excercise, students are presented with data from real archaeological investigations, which they then analyze using a number of heuristic techniques discussed in the text of the module:

A description of one of the examples used in the module

Screen shot of the graphical results of the example

Another description of real archaeological data used in the exercise

A summary of the data from the second example

In Exercise 4.1, descriptive statistics are discussed through the use of several examples, including an interactive exercise in which the students can see for themselves how changes in the data affect the statistics:

A screen shot of the interactive data summary exercise

Another screen shot of the interactive data summary exercise