Building a More Precise Understanding of the Past by Merging Techniques from Archaeology and Ancient DNA Analysis

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ancient DNA in Service of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Ancient DNA (aDNA) data have provided unprecedented new insights on demographic changes through time. This paper demonstrates that aDNA can also enhance well-established archaeological techniques, by building on research that has explored how aDNA data can help refine radiocarbon date range estimates. Previous research established that since there is a biological maximum for the number of years between the deaths of relatives, the ability to identify first- and second-degree related individuals through aDNA analysis can serve as a constraint on date range estimates for related and radiocarbon-dated individuals. Since the initial research on this topic, myriad new relatives, and in some instances multiple-generation lineages, have been defined through aDNA analysis, which have helped further refine the methodology. Additionally, data from ethnographic accounts and historic death records have been compiled to create more realistic date of death separation estimates than biological maximums for first- and second-degree relatives (i.e. ethnographic/historic data suggest that, on average, a parent and offspring are separated by about 25 years, not the biological maximum of 125 years). Finally, this paper reviews a few key case studies to explore how this technique can serve to augment both archaeological and aDNA approaches.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ancient DNA in Service of Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24202