Demographic dynamics inferred from radiocarbon dates and sampling biases

Summary

Using the number of uncalibrated BP dates or summed probabilistic density of calibrated dates, many studies attempt to monitor demographic dynamics of the past. However, some practical factors including differences in intensity and density of archaeological investigations and the preservation of datable materials, natural decay, and even different financial situations of investigations can cause sampling biases, eventually leading to distorted distributions of radiocarbon dates. Thus, database control to remove sampling biases is critical. The temporal distribution of South Korean radiocarbon dates from houses (approximately 10,000 in number) reveals extremely unusual fluctuations over time. Although this may suggest an abrupt population decline and re-growth or result from ‘cultural sampling biases’ such as change in duration of houses and destruction of earlier houses by later houses, the first thing to check is whether it is caused by practical sampling biases such as inter-investigation difference in intensity of material sampling. I propose some methods that can mitigate over- and underestimation of population, by analyzing the number of radiocarbon dates and the total area of archaeological features from which materials for dating were sampled. Then, I compare the controlled database with original database to see how much sampling biases affect the pattern.

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)   •
• Issues in Building Radiocarbon Chronologies

Keywords