A Bayesian Radiocarbon Chronology for Southern Appalachia, A.D. 700-1400

Summary

Advances in radiometric dating and statistical analyses are having a substantial impact on the archaeology of eastern North America, especially through the achievement of high precision intrasite chronologies. While detailed intrasite dynamics are invaluable to advancing understandings of rapid cultural change, more refined and empirically constructed regional histories are also necessary. An integrated regional Bayesian chronology is presented for Southern Appalachia using extant radiometric data from northwestern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and northeastern Alabama for the period between A.D. 700 and 1400. The purpose of the proposed chronological model is to help track the emergence of organizationally complex institutions across Southern Appalachia and to explore the spatial and temporal relationships between sub-regional loci of cultural transformation. This study contributes to debates concerning the origins and timing of the adoption of Mississippian cultural traits in the region. More broadly, this study contributes to a multiscalar perspective on the construction of regional social histories and to a comparative perspective on the tempo and rhythm of emergent institutional complexity.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage