Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T07:24:16.947Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Context-Appropriate Approach to Marine 14C Calibration: Δr and Bayesian Framework for the Nuvuk Cemetery, Point Barrow, Alaska

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2019

Anthony M Krus Open the ORCID record for Anthony M Krus [Opens in a new window] ,
Anne M Jensen ,
W Derek Hamilton Open the ORCID record for W Derek Hamilton [Opens in a new window]  and
Kerry Sayle
Anthony M Krus*
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow, SUERC, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride, Scotland, United Kingdom Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD, USA
Anne M Jensen
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA
W Derek Hamilton
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow, SUERC, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride, Scotland, United Kingdom
Kerry Sayle
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow, SUERC, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride, Scotland, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Email: tony.krus@glasgow.ac.uk.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study provides an assessment of the temporal changes in ΔR, which is the local deviation from the global surface water marine reservoir effect (MRE), in the Point Barrow area of the Alaskan Arctic, a coastal archaeological area that has experienced severe erosion accelerated by global warming. A total of 26 samples were submitted for radiocarbon (14C) dating from eight secure Thule (AD 1000–1750) archaeological contexts, and specifically from archaeological features with paired processed seal and caribou bones that had been frozen in situ. This new approach towards ΔR estimation provides a best-fit local correction for the 14C dating of human populations by focusing on the marine mammal (seals) predominantly consumed by the Thule (Coltrain et al. 2016). The weighted-mean ΔR value on these pairs is 450 ± 84 yr, which is about 50 years less than the weighted-mean (506 ± 69 yr) for the Point Barrow area calculated through 14C measurements from four known-age bivalves collected in AD 1913 (McNeely et al. 2006). The effects of using this new ΔR value for calibration was assessed through the Bayesian chronological modeling of 54 14C measurements from samples of human skeletons interred in the Nuvuk cemetery at Point Barrow, the largest ancient cemetery in northwest Alaska and traditionally thought to date to the Thule and earlier Birnirk (AD 500–1000) periods.

Keywords

Bayesian modelingBirnirk period14C calibrationchronologymarine reservoir effectNuvukPoint BarrowAlaskaThule period
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 61 , Issue 3 , June 2019 , pp. 733 - 747
Copyright
© 2019 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Arneborg, J, Heinemeier, J, Lynnerup, N, Nielsen, HL, Rud, N, Sveinbjornsdottir, AE. 1999. Change of diet of the Greenland Vikings determined from stable carbon isotope analysis and 14C dating of their bones. Radiocarbon 41(2):157–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ascough, PL, Cook, GT, Dugmore, AJ. 2009. North Atlantic marine 14C reservoir effects: Implications for late-Holocene chronological studies. Quaternary Geochronology 4(3):171–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayliss, A. 2009. Rolling out revolution: using radiocarbon dating in archaeology. Radiocarbon 51(1):123–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayliss, A, Bronk Ramsey, C, van der Plicht, J, Whittle, A. 2007. Bradshaw and Bayes: towards a timetable for the Neolithic. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17(1):1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayliss, A, van der Plicht, J, Bronk Ramsey, C, McCormac, G, Healy, F, Whittle, A. 2011. Towards generational time-scales: the quantitative interpretation of archaeological chronologies. In: Whittle, A, Healy, F, Bayliss, A, editors. Gathering time: dating the Early Neolithic enclosures of southern Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxbow Books. p. 17–59.Google Scholar
Bengtson, JL, Hiruki-Raring, LM, Simpkins, MA, Boveng, PL. 2005. Ringed and bearded seal densities in the eastern Chukchi Sea, 1999–2000. Polar Biology 28(11):833–845.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Britton, K, Knecht, R, Nehlich, O, Hillerdal, C, Davis Richard, S, Richards Michael, P. 2013. Maritime adaptations and dietary variation in prehistoric Western Alaska: stable isotope analysis of permafrost-preserved human hair. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 151(3):448–461.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bronk Ramsey, C. 1995. Radiocarbon calibration and analysis of stratigraphy: the OxCal program. Radiocarbon 37(2):425–430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 1998. Probability and dating. Radiocarbon 40(1):461–474.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2001. Development of the radiocarbon calibration program. Radiocarbon 43(2A):355–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51(1):337–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buck, CE, Cavanagh, WG, Litton, CD. 1996. Bayesian approach to interpreting archaeological data. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Google Scholar
Buck, CE, Kenworthy, JB, Litton, CD, Smith, AFM. 1991. Combining archaeological and radiocarbon information: a Bayesian approach to calibration. Antiquity 65(249):808–821.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chisholm, BS, Nelson, DE, Schwarcz, HP. 1982. Stable carbon isotope ratios as a measure of marine versus terrestrial protein in ancient diets. Science 216:1131–1132.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Coltrain, JB, Tackney, J, O’Rourke, DH. 2016. Thule whaling at Point Barrow, Alaska: The Nuvuk cemetery stable isotope and radiocarbon record. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 9:681–694.Google Scholar
Cook, GT, Ascough, PL, Bonsall, C, Hamilton, WD, Russell, N, Sayle, KL, Scott, EM, Bownes, JM. 2015. Best practice methodology for 14C calibration of marine and mixed terrestrial/marine samples. Quaternary Geochronology 27:164–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crawford, JA, Frost, KJ, Quakenbush, LT, Whiting, A. 2012. Different habitat use strategies by subadult and adult ringed seals (Phoca hispida) in the Bering and Chukchi seas. Polar Biology 35(2):241–255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeNiro, MJ, Epstein, S. 1978. Influence of diet on the distribution of carbon isotopes in animals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 42(5):495–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drucker, DG, Hobson, KA, Ouellet, J-P, Courtois, R. 2010. Influence of forage preferences and habitat use on 13C and 15N abundance in wild caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) and moose (Alces alces) from Canada. Isotopes in Environmental and Health Studies 46(1):107–121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dunbar, E, Cook, GT, Naysmith, P, Tripney, BG, Xu, S. 2016. AMS 14C dating at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory. Radiocarbon 58(1):9–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernandes, R, Millard, AR, Brabec, M, Nadeau, M-J, Grootes, P. 2014. Food Reconstruction Using Isotopic Transferred Signals (FRUITS): a Bayesian model for diet reconstruction. PLOS ONE 9(2):e87436.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fizet, M, Mariotti, A, Bocherens, H, Lange-Badré, B, Vandermeersch, B, Borel, JP, Bellon, G. 1995. Effect of diet, physiology and climate on carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes of collagen in a late Pleistocene anthropic palaeoecosystem: Marillac, Charente, France. Journal of Archaeological Science 22(1):67–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, JA. 1959. Eskimo prehistory in the vicinity of Point Barrow, Alaska. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History and Theory 47(1):1–272.Google Scholar
Hall, ES, Fullerton, L, editors. 1990. The 1981 Excavations at the Utqiagvik archaeological site Barrow, Alaska. Barrow (AK): The North Slope Borough Commission on Inupiat History, Language and Culture.Google Scholar
Hamilton, WD, Sayle, KL. 2019. Stable isotopes, chronology, and Bayesian models for the Viking archaeology of north-east Iceland. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. doi: 10.1080/15564894.2017.1363097Google Scholar
Harwood, LA, Smith, TG, Auld, JC. 2012. Fall migration of ringed seals (Phoca hispida) through the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, 2001–02. Arctic 65(1):35–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, AM. 2007. Nuvuk Burial 1: an early Thule hunter of high status. Alaska Journal of Anthropology 5(1):119–22.Google Scholar
Jensen, AM. 2009a. Nuvuk: Point Barrow, Alaska: the Thule cemetery and Ipiutak occupation [PhD dissertation]. Bryn Mawr College.Google Scholar
Jensen, AM. 2009b. Radiocarbon dates from recent excavations at Nuvuk, Point Barrow, Alaska and their implications for Neoeskimo prehistory.In: On the track of the Thule culture from Bering Strait to East Greenland. Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, SILA. p. 45–62.Google Scholar
Jensen, AM. 2014. The Archaeology of North Alaska: Point Hope in Context. In: Auerbach, B, Hilton, C, Cowgil, L, editors. The foragers of point hope: the biology and archaeology of humans on the edge of the Alaskan Arctic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 11–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, BP, Badajos, OH, Kunnasranta, M, Moran, JR, Martinez-Bakker, M, Wartzok, D, Boveng, P. 2010. Seasonal home ranges and fidelity to breeding sites among ringed seals. Polar Biology 33(8):1095–1109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krafft, BA, Kovacs, KM, Lydersen, C. 2007. Distribution of sex and age groups of ringed seals Pusa hispida in the fast-ice breeding habitat of Kongsfjorden, Svalbard. Marine Ecology Progress Series 335:199–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowry, LF, Frost, KJ, Davis, R, DeMaster, DP, Suydam, RS. 1998. Movements and behavior of satellite-tagged spotted seals (Phoca largha) in the Bering and Chukchi Seas. Polar Biology 19(4):221–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacCarthy, GR. 1953. Recent changes in the shoreline near Point Barrow, Alaska. Arctic 6(1):44–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maguire, R. 1988. The Journal of Rochfort Maguire, 1852–1854: two years at Point Barrow, Alaska, Aboard HMS Plover in the search for Sir John Franklin. London: The Hakluyt Society.Google Scholar
Masters, PM. 1987. Preferential preservation of non-collagenous protein during bone diagenesis: implications for chronometric ad stable isotope measurements. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 51:3209–3214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxwell, MS. 1985. Prehistory of the Eastern Arctic. Orlando (FL): Academic.Google Scholar
McGhee, R. 1996. Ancient people of the Arctic. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.Google Scholar
McGhee, R. 2009. When and why did the Inuit move to the eastern Arctic. In: Maschner, H, Mason, O, McGhee, R, editors. The northern world, AD 900–1400. Salt Lake City (UT): University of Utah Press. p. 155–163.Google Scholar
McNeely, R, Dyke, AS, Southon, JR. 2006. Canadian marine reservoir ages, preliminary data assessment. Geological Survey Canada.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrison, DA. 2009. The “Arctic Maritime” expansion: a view from the western Canadian Arctic. In: Maschner, HDG, Mason, OK, McGhee, R, editors. The dynamics of climate, economy, and politics in hemispheric perspective. Salt Lake City (UT): University of Utah Press. p. 164–178.Google Scholar
Naysmith, P, Cook, G, Freeman, S, Scott, EM, Anderson, R, Dunbar, E, Muir, G, Dougans, A, Wilcken, K, Schnabel, C, Russell, N, Ascough, P, Maden, C. 2010. 14C AMS at SUERC: improving QA data from the 5 MV tandem AMS and 250 kV SSAMS. Radiocarbon 52(2):263–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, BJ, Fry, B. 1987. Stable isotopes in ecosystem studies. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 18(1):293–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Post, DM. 2002. Using stable isotopes to estimate trophic position: models, methods, and assumptions. Ecology 83(3):703–718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Queiroz-Alves, E, Kita, M, Philippa, A, Christopher Bronk, R. 2018. The worldwide marine radiocarbon reservoir effect: definitions, mechanisms, and prospects. Reviews of Geophysics 56(1):278–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raghavan, M, DeGiorgio, M, Albrechtsen, A, Moltke, I, Skoglund, P, Korneliussen, TS, Grønnow, B, Appelt, M, Gulløv, HC, Friesen, TM, Fitzhugh, W, Malmström, H, Rasmussen, S, Olsen, J, Melchior, L, Fuller, BT, Fahrni, SM, Stafford, T, Grimes, V, Renouf, MAP, Cybulski, J, Lynnerup, N, Lahr, MM, Britton, K, Knecht, R, Arneborg, J, Metspalu, M, Cornejo, OE, Malaspinas, A-S, Wang, Y, Rasmussen, M, Raghavan, V, Hansen, TVO, Khusnutdinova, E, Pierre, T, Dneprovsky, K, Andreasen, C, Lange, H, Hayes, MG, Coltrain, J, Spitsyn, VA, Götherström, A, Orlando, L, Kivisild, T, Villems, R, Crawford, MH, Nielsen, FC, Dissing, J, Heinemeier, J, Meldgaard, M, Bustamante, C, O’Rourke, DH, Jakobsson, M, Gilbert, MTP, Nielsen, R, Willerslev, E. 2014. The genetic prehistory of the New World Arctic. Science 345(6200):1255832.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reimer, PJ, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Beck, JW, Blackwell, PG, Ramsey, CB, Buck, CE, Cheng, H, Edwards, RL, Friedrich, M, Grootes, PM, Guilderson, TP, Haflidason, H, Hajdas, I, Hatté, C, Heaton, TJ, Hoffmann, DL, Hogg, AG, Hughen, KA, Kaiser, KF, Kromer, B, Manning, SW, Niu, M, Reimer, RW, Richards, DA, Scott, EM, Southon, JR, Staff, RA, Turney, CSM, van der Plicht, J. 2013. IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50, 000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55(4):1869–1887.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, N. 2011. Marine radiocarbon reservoir effects (MRE) in archaeology: temporal and spatial changes through the Holocene within the UK coastal environment [PhD dissertation]. University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
Russell, N, Cook, GT, Ascough, PL, Dugmore, AJ. 2010. Spatial variation in the marine radiocarbon reservoir effect throughout the Scottish post-Roman to Late Medieval Period: North Sea values (500–1350 BP). Radiocarbon 52(3):1166–1181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, N, Cook, GT, Ascough, PL, Scott, EM. 2015. A period of calm in Scottish seas: A comprehensive study of ΔR values for the northern British Isles coast and the consequent implications for archaeology and oceanography. Quaternary Geochronology 30:34–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schoeninger, MJ, DeNiro, MJ. 1984. Nitrogen and carbon isotopic composition of bone collagen from marine and terrestrial animals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 48(4):625–639.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, EM. 2003. The Third International Radiocarbon Intercomparison (TIRI) and the Fourth International Radiocarbon Intercomparison (FIRI) 1990–2002: results, analysis, and conclusions. Radiocarbon 45(2):135–408.Google Scholar
Scott, EM, Bryant, C, Cook, GT, Naysmith, P. 2003. Is there a fifth international radiocarbon intercomparison (VIRI)? Radiocarbon 45:493–495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, EM, Cook, GT, Naysmith, P. 2010. A report on phase 2 of the Fifth International Radiocarbon Intercomparison (VIRI). Radiocarbon 52(3):846–858.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, EM, Cook, GT, Naysmith, P, Bryant, C, O’Donnell, D. 2007. A report on phase 1 of the 5th international radiocarbon intercomparison (VIRI). Radiocarbon 49:409–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheehan, G. 1997. In the belly of the whale: trade and war in Eskimo society. Anchorage (AK): Alaska Anthropological Association.Google Scholar
Stanford, D. 1976. The Walakpa Site, Alaska: its Place in the Birnirk and Thule Cultures. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Kra, RS. 1986. Editorial comment. Radiocarbon 28(2B):ii.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Polach, HA. 1977. Reporting of 14C data. Radiocarbon 19(3):355–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuross, N, Fogel, ML, Hare, PE. 1988. Variability in the preservation of the isotopic composition of collagen from fossil bone. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 52:929–935.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ward, GK, Wilson, SR. 1978. Procedures for comparing and combining radiocarbon age-determinations: a critique. Archaeometry 20(1):19–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Krus et al. supplementary material

Krus et al. supplementary material 1

Download Krus et al. supplementary material(File)
File 97.6 KB