A sample simulation study was undertaken using a data base from an eighteenth-nineteenth century farmstead site in Delaware where the plow zone over the site core was completely excavated. Systematically stratified aligned samples based on quadrats provided more accurate, more precise, and more efficient estimates than did transect-based designs. Sampling fractions greater than 25 percent did not return significant increases in accuracy, precision, and efficiency relative to the costs of the larger samples.
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