Explaining Variation in the Scale of Neolithic Quarry and Mine Production

Summary

In recent years new methods have been developed for using summed radiocarbon probabilities as a population proxy and for comparing radiocarbon datasets to establish whether they are significantly different from one another, while taking into account sampling variation and the patterns in the calibration curve. On the basis of newly collected and updated radiocarbon data on the dating of Neolithic mines and quarries in in Britain, Ireland and continental Northwest Europe, the paper will present the results of using these methods to compare the chronological distribution of mine and quarry exploitation with regional fluctuations in the population of early farmers and in the scale of forest clearance that they undertook, to test the hypothesis that the intensity of production depended on variation in the demand generated by the population and its clearance activities. It will do this by simulating large numbers of mine date samples on the assumption that they represent random samples of the population and clearance distribution and comparing these with the observed distribution.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20637