Modelling the chronology of Neolithic ceramics in eastern France

Summary

The associations of decorative motifs on Neolithic pots from the Alsace region of the upper Rhine valley, eastern France, have been rigorously studied by Philippe Lefranc and Anthony Denaire using correspondence analysis. Separate sequences are available for the Early (LBK) Neolithic pottery and for a series of related Middle Neolithic ceramic styles, running from the later sixth to later fifth millennia cal BC. Within the ‘Times of Their Lives’ project, the absolute chronology of this cultural sequence has been formally modelled by combining a suite of radiocarbon dates from graves and articulated animal bones in settlement pits with the partitioned seriations. In this way, much more precise estimates have been obtained for the rate and tempo of cultural change over a millennium or so. This has also thrown up an unsuspected possible hiatus between the late LBK and the Hinkelstein phases, in the early fifth millennium cal BC. Traditional site-based analysis, close knowledge of the material, seriation and formal modelling in a Bayesian framework make a powerful combination with which to examine in more detail a long cultural sequence.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The short and the long of it: combining timescales

Keywords

Spatial Coverage