Getting the Chronology Correct: Bayesian Chronological Analysis of Initial Ceramic Deposits in Island Southeast Asia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Throughout his career Steve Athens has been concerned with generating archaeological chronologies that, because of their precision and validity, add to our understanding of the past. Steve was never one to generate dates of dubious quality simply to produce a table in a report. In this spirit, and dovetailing with Steve's chronological work in the Bismarck Archipelago (Rieth & Athens 2017) we present a Bayesian chronological analysis of initial ceramic deposits in Island Southeast Asia to generate chronologies of maximum validity and identify any spatial directionality in the chronological deposition of ceramics. Our results have significant implications for understanding the movement of Neolithic populations in the region, the origins of Lapita groups that would ultimately colonize the southwest Pacific, and population interaction within ISEA-Near Oceania generally.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23158