Bayesian Analysis of the Chronology of the Lynch Site (25BD1) and Comparisons to the Central Plains Tradition and Central Plains Oneota

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper uses a Bayesian approach to existing and new radiocarbon dates to examine the chronology of three distinct 13th through 15th-century occupations on the Central Plains. First, we present new dates from the Lynch Site (25BD1) on Ponca Creek in northeastern Nebraska and examine them in relation to dates on related sites along Ponca Creek. Second, we compare the Lynch site/Ponca Creek chronology to the chronology of the Central Plains Tradition (CPT) and Central Plains Oneota sites in Nebraska and Kansas. Chronology is archaeology’s backbone: unless we control time accurately and precisely, we cannot see patterns of change or relationships in space. Controlling chronology is never an end in itself, but it is always an essential means to all of the ends that matter for our field. Plains archaeology is keenly aware of this: debates over temporal sequences and revisions of those sequences as new evidence and better analytic tools have long been critical to improving our ability to see the past. Our focus here is narrow, but it has important implications for major issues of migration, social interaction, ethnogenesis, and other topics.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33086