Outline of Archaeological Traditions

Definition

The Outline of Archaeological Traditions (OAT) is an archaeological tradition classification system. The OAT is used as the sampling frame for eHRAF Archaeology.

The Outline of Archaeological Traditions (OAT), compiled by Peter N. Peregrine with the help of a Board of Advisors (Peregrine 2001, revised 2010) attempts to catalogue all known prehistoric archaeological traditions. By an archaeological tradition is meant “a group of populations sharing similar subsistence practices, technology, and forms of socio-political organization, which are spatially contiguous over a relatively large area and which endure temporally for a relatively long period.” For eHRAF Archaeology, HRAF has employed two types of sampling. The first is simple random sampling (SRS) from the OAT. The second is to include entire tradition sequences which usually consist of three or more archaeological traditions.