Constructing Chronologies II: The Big Picture with Bayes and Beyond

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lorena Becerra-Valdivia. Tom Higham.

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. The initial peopling of the Americas marks a major event in the expansion of modern humans across the planet. Questions associated with this dispersal remain, however, largely unanswered, with the previously accepted model, “Clovis-first,” effectively refuted. Considering that timing is fundamental in the study of human...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Erick Robinson. Judson Finley.

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. Fremont societies represent the northernmost adoption of agriculture in Western North America. Research on the Fremont provides one of the few opportunities in the world to understand the processes behind both the adoption and the abandonment of agriculture. Decades of research have illustrated how variability is a...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Price.

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. Aggregations of radiocarbon 14C dates are seeing increasing use as proxies for the relative population size through time of past societies and regions. Two major problems complicate the use of sets of radiocarbon dates as demographic proxies: the bias problem and the summary problem. The bias problem exists because the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Myles Miller.

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. Over 4,000 radiocarbon age estimates are used to examine temporal trends in the Jornada region of the American Southwest between 4500 and 400 BP. Chronometric analysis reveals changing frequencies in architectural forms, technologies, and subsistence, a series of punctuated demographic trajectories and regional...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Derek Hamilton.

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. La Tène: a chronology that lives beyond the site, beyond regional and national boundaries; a term that conjures images of swirling ambiguous imagery, fine metalwork and shining pots. In Britain the term describes artifacts of apparently comparative date, in particular brooches. La Tène I brooches have strong affinities...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jonathan Hanna. Matthew F. Napolitano. Robert J. DiNapoli. Jessica H. Stone. Scott M. Fitzpatrick.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brandon Ritchison. Matthew Davidson.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lori Barkwill Love.

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. Although originally domesticated in Mexico, the initial adoption and spread of maize (*Zea mays) are key to understanding the forager-to-farmer transition in the North American Southwest. Fundamental to our understanding of this transition is chronology, especially related to the introduction, spread, and use of maize....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Timothy Rieth. Robert DiNapoli. Anthony Krus. Derek Hamilton.

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. Archaeologically, island colonization may be estimated at different geographical and temporal scales. Whereas behaviorally, colonization is a single landfall event, identifying the location of this initial landing in the archaeological record is not always possible due to site preservation, taphonomic, and sampling...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Annapaola Passerini.

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. The Kura-Araxes horizon (KA; 3500–2500 BCE), which characterizes the EBA in the South Caucasus, is at the center of an archaeological debate regarding the timing of its development and dispersal into areas of the greater Near East, including eastern Anatolia, northwestern Iran, and the Southern Levant. Increasing...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Birch. Sturt Manning.

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...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Carla Hadden. Margo Schwadron.

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. The Ten Thousand Islands region of the southwest Florida coast contains extensive prehistoric shell-matrix sites, ranging from small, single rings to large, complex, multi-mound “Shell Works” sites, composed of oyster shell predominantly. Few have ventured to explore this unique archaeological landscape due to the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Caitlin Buck. James Zeidler.

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. The radiocarbon record from sustained archaeological field research in the Jama Valley of coastal Ecuador has provided a robust dataset for Bayesian chronological modeling using multiple archaeological sites from a valley-wide landscape. This paper delves into greater detail on the development of the model’s prior...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Magdalena Schmid. Fiona Petchey.

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. Demography is a key factor in investigating the relationships between population levels, along with resource availability, environmental dynamics, social organization, and mobility. Prehistoric human activities and population levels can be modeled using summed probability distributions of calibrated radiocarbon dates...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sturt Manning.

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. Recent years have seen major developments in accuracy and precision for several aspects of radiocarbon dating. There is a new annual-resolution (last 5K) Northern Hemisphere calibration curve, increased focus on sample selection and processing (chronometric hygiene), and widespread application of sophisticated Bayesian...