Abstract
Data on the concentration of Na, K, Sc, Cr, Fe, Co, Cu, Ga, Rb, Cs, Ba, La, Ce, Sm, Eu, Tb, Lu, Hf, Ta, and Th obtained by neutron activation analysis have been used to characterize Korean porcelainsherds by multivariate analysis. The mathematical approach employed is principal component analysis (PCA). PCA was found to be helpful for dimensionality reduction and for obtaining information regarding (a) the number of independent causal variables required to account for the variability in the overall data set, (b) the extent to which a given variable contributes to a component and (c) the number of causal variables required to explain the total variability of each measured variable.