Evaluating the Effects of Time Averaged Deposits on Archaeological Chronologies

Summary

Establishing intra-and inter-site chronologies for the dwellings and workshops at Monticello’s Mulberry Row has been a focus of study for decades. While broad temporal outlines are clear, we argue here that further progress depends on gaining better analytical control of a key issue: time averaging of archaeological assemblages. In this poster, we present our iterative process to develop methods to estimate variation in time averaging between these assemblages at different levels of aggregation. We highlight how the results can advance our understanding of Mulberry Row’s complex formation processes by accounting for post-depositional disturbances and different archaeological practices. Ultimately, controlling for variation in time averaging is key to obtaining more accurate estimates of synchronic variation and change over time in assemblage content among different sites. Future inter-site analysis will use this as a foundation to explore a plethora of research topics, including evaluating artifact assemblages from concurrent structures and comparing Mulberry Row sites to contemporaneous field quarter sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17429