RADIOCARBON DATING OF TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSITIONS: FROM ATLATL TO BOW IN NORTHWESTERN SUBARCTIC CANADA

Summary

Prehistoric archaeologists traditionally focus on periods of stability rather than change when constructing regional cultural chronologies, even though explaining periods of change is equally if not more important than explaining periods of stability. The advent of large radiocarbon date databases and the proliferation of open source computing programs such as program R have recently provided archaeologists with the tools necessary to begin understanding prehistoric transitions with high chronological precision. In this study, I employ Markov-Chain Monte Carlo procedures, Bayesian statistical theory, Program R, R’s Bchron package, and IntCal13 to calculate the optimal number of dates required on atlatl and bow technology to adequately date this transition. Further analysis compares a subset of previously published radiocarbon dates on diagnostic atlatl and bow technologies collected from ice patches in the northwestern Canadian subarctic to thousands of runs of computer generated models in order to determine whether bow and atlatl technology overlapped for a significant amount of time in prehistory, and for how many years of actual calendric time they overlapped. Analyses such as this one open the door to explaining why and how technological transitions occured within and between prehistoric groups.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Teaching through the Past: Advances in Technological Analysis of the Archaeological Record

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 13265