Radiocarbon and Historical Archaeology in Iroquoia: Bringing Near-Calendar Dating Precision to Iroquoian Chronology with Radiocarbon – Methods, Issues and Potential

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Dating Iroquoia: Advancing Radiocarbon Chronologies in Northeastern North America" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper outlines the aims and methods of the Dating Iroquoia project by which we propose to achieve calendar chronological precision from radiocarbon for Iroquoian sites at, or better than, the level of individual settlement spans – i.e. calendar resolution at the level of approximately one to two decades. The focus is on careful sample selection, high-resolution radiocarbon dating, and then deploying suitable analytical approaches – especially appropriate Bayesian chronological modelling. Some case studies from initial work are presented and worked through which demonstrate issues and the potential: both in terms of independently evaluating (and quantifying) assumed temporal site sequences based on typological criteria, and in terms of supporting or questioning existing dates (and thus underlying assumptions). A radiocarbon-based time frame for Iroquoia indicates a new history and a need to re-evaluate a number of existing assumptions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Dating Iroquoia: Advancing Radiocarbon Chronologies in Northeastern North America   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23725