Ronquin Re-Visited Yet Again: New Radiocarbon Dates and Their Implication for Orinocan Ceramic Chronology

Summary

A series of radiocarbon dates obtained recently from carbonized encrustations on ceramics sheds new light on the Barrancas to Ronquin ceramic sequence, a chronology that has been long contested in the Orinoco River Valley by many investigators. These new radiocarbon dates clearly argue that the so-called "long chronology" suggested by Rouse and Roosevelt for the La Gruta to Ronquin sequence developed for the Middle Orinoco River, a chronology that was argued to extend close to 4000 years, is invalid and is in need of revision. The new radiocarbon dates supplement those obtained previously by the author, providing the basis for a more solid chronology, one that falls within the first millennium AD. It is a sequence that links well-dated Ronquin and cognate ceramic assemblages found within wide-spread paleosol horizons that are nothing more than allogenic stratums linked to broader climatic events both within and beyond the Orinoco Valley.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22108