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DUST CAVE REVISITED: A BAYESIAN REANALYSIS OF THE RADIOCARBON RECORD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2017

David K. Thulman
David K. Thulman*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, George Washington UniversityWashington, D.C. 20052 (dthulman@gmail.com)
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Abstract

The Dust Cave cultural chronology and radiocarbon sequence is one of the most important in southeastern North America. In their initial interpretation, the excavators were unable to separate the dates of the early and later strata in ways that facilitate their use for defining the associated cultural components. Here the sequence is reevaluated using Bayesian statistics, one additional date, and assessment of potential outliers. The results produce a useable sequence of non-overlapping cultural components (within the uncertainties of radiocarbon dating) that will improve our understanding the Paleoindian and Early and Middle Archaic cultural chronology in the Southeast.

La secuencia cronológico-cultural y de fechas de radiocarbono de Dust Cave, Alabama, es una de las más importantes en el sudeste de Norteamérica. En su interpretación inicial, los excavadores no pudieron separar de manera satisfactoria las fechas de los estratos más tempranos de aquellas de los estratos más recientes para facilitar la definición de los componentes culturales asociados. En el presente artículo se vuelve a evaluar la secuencia con el uso de la estadística Bayesiana, una fecha adicional y la evaluación de posibles valores atípicos. Los resultados producen una secuencia útil de los componentes culturales que no se solapan (dentro de las incertidumbres de la datación por radiocarbono). Esta secuencia mejorará nuestra comprensión de la cronología cultural paleoindia y del arcaico temprano y medio en el Sudeste.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 168 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by the Society for American Archaeology 

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