Dating Techniques: Radiometric (Other Keyword)
51-75 (96 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Dating Iroquoia: Advancing Radiocarbon Chronologies in Northeastern North America" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper details the preliminary results of the Dating Iroquoia project and reviews some of the most significant implications of our revised radiocarbon chronology as they relate to current understandings of Iroquoian cultural development. First, a brief review of traditional approaches to...
Mind the Gap: Occupation at Angkor Wat and Implications for the decline of Angkor (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Paradigms Shift: New Interpretations in Mainland Southeast Asian Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Angkor Empire controlled or influenced much of mainland Southeast Asia from the 9-15th centuries CE. Traditionally, scholars have dated the end of the Angkor Empire to 1431 CE, when the capital was sacked by the kingdom of Ayuddhaya in Siam (Thailand). More recent archaeological work has also demonstrated a...
The Mississippian Fin de Siècle in the Middle Cumberland Region of Tennessee (2018)
Bayesian chronological modeling is used to investigate the chronology for a large-scale human depopulation event during the Mississippi period (A.D. 1000–1700) known as the Vacant Quarter phenomenon. The Middle Cumberland Region (MCR) of Tennessee is within the Vacant Quarter area and six villages from the final phase of Mississippian activity in the MCR have been subjected to radiocarbon dating. Complete radiocarbon datasets from these sites are presented within an interpretative Bayesian...
Modeling Demographic Change in the Precolumbian Caribbean (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A recent synthesis of radiocarbon dates in the Caribbean indicated two major population dispersals that correspond to the longstanding cultural divisions of the region's Archaic and Ceramic Ages. Using the most reliable dates from this dataset, we constructed both region-wide and local summed probability distributions...
Modeling Fort Ancient: Legacy Data and Pathways to Improving Chronology in Late Precolonial Kentucky (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ceramic- and lithic-based phase-level chronologies, built on assumptions of gradual change over time, have traditionally comprised the foundation of archaeological reconstructions. Recent reevaluations of long-standing regional chronologies, often based on pre-AMS radiocarbon dates and the presence or absence of...
Monumentality, Politics, and Power: Implications of Recent Investigations of Late Preclassic Public Architecture at Xunantunich, Belize (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Preclassic Landscape in the Mopan Valley, Belize" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Late Preclassic period (~300 BC–AD 300) witnessed some of the most important changes in social and political roles in the Maya lowlands when an emergent elite class began to use art and architecture to publicly display their elevated status in society. Recent archaeological research at the hilltop center of Xunantunich, located in...
Morgantina's Lost Port: Geoarchaeological Insights into the Paleohydrology of Central Sicily (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ancient city of Morgantina is today located deep in the dry Sicilian interior, more than 50 km from the sea’s edge and the expansive maritime networks of the Mediterranean. Yet, despite the site’s remote inland location, there is ample archaeological evidence that in antiquity Morgantina enjoyed the status of an...
Neanderthals, Denisovans and Modern Humans: Unravelling the Chronology of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic of Eurasia (2018)
For more than half a century Paleolithic archaeologists have grappled with radiocarbon-based chronologies that are often contradictory and imprecise. Several key debates in the Palaeolithic have their roots in basic issues related to chronology; did the Aurignacian predate the Chatelperronian in some regions of Europe? When did Neanderthals disappear? How long did anatomically modern humans (AMH) and Neanderthals overlap, and what implications did this have for interaction, acculturation or...
New Caches from Area B at the Cooper’s Ferry Site, Idaho, Reveal Key Technological Insights and Extend the Age of Stemmed Points in the Americas (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Late Pleistocene Stemmed Points across North America: Continental Questions and Regional Concerns" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Continued analysis of materials excavated from Area B at the Cooper’s Ferry site has clarified details about a well dated artifact assemblage containing 11 stemmed projectile points. New radiocarbon analyses show that these stemmed points are significantly older than classic Clovis fluted...
New Data on Archaic Period Chronology and Raw Material Variation from a Stratified Archaic Site in the Appalachian Summit Region (2018)
Excavations completed by AECOM documented deeply stratified Archaic deposits at the Weatherman Site (31YC31) in the Appalachian Summit Region of North Carolina. This site is located at 2,500 feet above sea level (10 miles north of Mt. Mitchell, the tallest peak east of the Mississippi River) and is situated in the floodplain of the South Toe River, which flows west to become the Nolichucky River and eventually the Tennessee River. The youngest Archaic component at the Weatherman Site is a Late...
New Multi-disciplinary Studies Re-shape our Understanding of Neolithic Peopling and Biocultural Adaptations in Western Liguria (Northwestern Italy) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beginning in the mid-1800s, about 200 burials and an undefined number of scattered human remains have been reported from several caves and rock shelters in western Liguria. The skeletal series, excavated following the methodology of the time, were considered likely/probably/possibly "Neolithic" or "Middle Neolithic",...
A New Radiocarbon Dated Record of Holocene Weapon Technology from The Trail Creek Cave Site, Seward Peninsula, Alaska (2018)
The Trail Creek Caves site on the Seward Peninsula in western Alaska was excavated by Helge Larsen in 1949-1950, and is among the most important archaeological sites in central Beringia. It contains a lengthy, rich and well-preserved paleoecological and archaeological record dating to the late Pleistocene, and the largest collections of mid-Holocene age organic tools from the region. However, poor chronological and stratigraphic controls have hampered the interpretive value of the site. New...
Plasma Micro-Sampling in Radiocarbon Dating: Approaching a Non-Destructive Model (2018)
The development of low-energy plasma oxidation as a sampling technique has created new opportunities for applying radiocarbon dating. Plasma oxidation can be carried out at energies below the threshold of carbonate and oxalate dissociation, dramatically reducing the need for pretreatment and subsequent loss of sample volume. Radiocarbon sample size can be reduced toward the minimum of the 40-100 millionths of a gram of carbon that is actually needed for standard AMS dating. This allows the...
Poor Preservation in Complex Urban Settings: Chronology-Building in the Maya Area (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies I: Stratification and Correlation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists working in the Maya area face multiple challenges as they develop chronological studies. First, many sites are complex urban centers with diverse types of structures and areas. Second, these sites commonly have long occupation, involving migrations, destructions of buildings, and recycling of construction...
Population Reconstructions for Humans and Megafauna Suggest Mixed Causes for North American Pleistocene Extinctions (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Human Interactions with Extinct Fauna" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dozens of large mammals such as mammoth, mastodon, and horse (i.e., "megafauna") disappeared in North America at the end of the Pleistocene with climate change and "overkill" the most widely-argued causes. However, the population dynamics of humans and megafauna preceding extinctions have received little attention, even though such information may...
A Precontact, Late Prehistoric Decline in the North American Indigenous Population (2023)
This is an abstract from the "A Tribute to the Contributions of Lawrence C. Todd to World Prehistory" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lawrence Todd has long contributed to “big picture” research. Here we discuss one instance of such research using a new radiocarbon database (Kelly et al. 2022, American Antiquity) of >104,000 ages to discuss population trends of North America’s Indigenous population of the past 13,000 years. We focus on the late...
Radiocarbon Chronology-Building and Relational Histories in Iroquoian Archaeology (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper summarizes work completed to date by the Dating Iroquoia project. Our aim has been to construct refined regional chronologies for select Northern Iroquoian community relocation sequences through radiocarbon dating and Bayesian chronological modeling, including novel approaches for overcoming the ca. AD...
Radiocarbon Datasets, Population Proxies, and Climate Proxies: The Hanford Reach and the Yakima Fold Belt, Columbia Plateau (2021)
This is an abstract from the "People, Climate, and Proxies in Holocene Western North America" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A review of progress in radiocarbon dating for riverine and upland sites identifies data gaps and issues that are relevant for understanding archaeological landscapes. A total of 183 radiocarbon dates have been obtained from the Hanford Reach and adjacent lands; 108 of these date cultural materials. Occupations appear to...
Radiocarbon Dates and Freshwater Resource Use within Prehistoric Diets (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Northeast Asian Prehistoric Hunter-Gather Lifeways: Multidisciplinary, Individual Life History Approach" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The human remains of Early to Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age populations surrounding Lake Baikal have known and large offsets in their radiocarbon ages caused by “old carbon” in freshwater ecosystems. This freshwater reservoir effect (FRE) causes human radiocarbon ages to appear...
Radiocarbon Dating of Land Snail Shell and the Chronology of MSA-Neolithic Human Activity in the Haua Fteah, Libya (2018)
Land snails have a radiocarbon ecology which leads to offsets in shell radiocarbon age, relative to contemporary biogenic carbon. We describe new methods for evaluating and calculating this offset. We radiocarbon date and apply the new methods to land snail food debris, from the deep MSA to Neolithic sequence in the Haua Fteah cave, NE Libya. Oxcal modelling of the resulting 136 dates over ~45000 years shows the site was used for short episodes separated by long periods of abandonment. The...
Radiocarbon Dating the Iroquoian Occupation of Northern New York (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Dating Iroquoia: Advancing Radiocarbon Chronologies in Northeastern North America" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fifty new, high-precision AMS radiocarbon dates have been obtained on maize, faunal remains and ceramic residues from 18 pre-contact Iroquoian village sites in northern New York. These dates add significant new information to the chronology of the Iroquoian occupation of the region. Once thought to span AD...
A Re-Evaluation of Moundville's Collapse (2018)
The disruption of social traditions in ancient societies is often described as the collapse of complexity, but persisting or resilient practices are often ignored, limiting archaeological interpretations of social continuity and change. This paper addresses these historical processes during the terminal occupation of Moundville, a multiple mound Mississippian civic-ceremonial complex occupied from A.D. 1200-1550 and located in west-central Alabama. The collapse of ancient complex societies has...
Reassessment of Population Density in Late Precolumbian Central Caribbean Panama (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Advances and New Perspectives in the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Using radiometric and settlement survey data from an area with 100% survey coverage in the rain-forested lowlands of the Caribbean watershed of Colón, Panama, we present the results of an analysis of site distribution and 14C dates to calculate population density. The archaeological data is compared with previous population...
Recent Investigations in Rock Art Dating in Several Cuban Caves (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cuba has many karst caves with pictographs, but there has been uncertainty about who created the rock art. The prehistoric population, historic indigenous groups pushed to the margins by the Spanish, and maroons or escaped African slaves are all possibilities. Cuban archaeologists have debated for decades which groups were...
Refining the Chronology of Basketmaker II Perishable Craft Production in Southeastern Utah (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the past decade, the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project has documented nearly 5,000 perishable artifacts from alcoves in southeastern Utah. As part of this work, the project has generated about 100 radiocarbon dates from well-preserved woven textiles, sandals, baskets, wooden implements, and other perishable items from the Grand Gulch, Butler Wash,...