You should really look at Rebecca Saunders's work on southeastern pottery. She was dealing with stamped designs (frequently over-stamped designs) and developed a methodology for breaking down both the designs and various physical attributes of the pottery into basic components. Then she used cluster analysis to determine whether attributes separated out into spatial clusters at her site. She originally published her work in Ceramic Notes through the Florida Museum of Natural History; you would need to find a library copy, because that number is no longer in print. Or refer to her master's thesis. It seems to me that you could adapt her methodology for use on incised designs fairly easily. Her thesis, although now some years old, was also considered to be one of the best summaries in archaeology concerning design analysis and use of cluster analysis in ceramic research. It got Prudence Rice's approval, which is not an easy thing to do. James Cusick james cusick [log in to unmask]