One of the many areas in which Correspondence Analysis (CA) is an effective
method, concerns ordination problems. For example, CA is a well-known
technique for the seriation of archaeological assemblages. A problem with
the CA seriation solution, however, is that only a relative ordering of the
assemblages is obtained. To improve the usual CA solution, a constrained CA
approach that incorporates additional information in the form of equality
and inequality constraints concerning the time points of the assemblages may
be considered. Using such constraints, explicit dates can be assigned to the
seriation solution. In this paper, we extend the set of constraints that can
be used in CA by introducing interval constraints. That is, constraints that
put the CA\\ solution within a specific time-frame. Moreover, we study the
quality of the constrained CA solution in a simulation study. In particular,
by means of the simulation study we are able to assess how well ordinary and
constrained CA can recover the true time order. Furthermore, for the
constrained approach, we see how well the true dates are retrieved. The
simulation study is set up in such a way that it mimics the data of a series
of ceramic assemblages consisting of the locally produced tableware from
Sagalassos (SW Turkey). We find that the dating of the assemblages on the
basis of constraints appears to work quite well