Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T11:15:47.504Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

USING RADIOCARBON DATA TO CHRONOLOGICALLY CONTROL POPULATION DENSITY ESTIMATES DERIVED FROM SYSTEMATICALLY COLLECTED INTRA-SETTLEMENT DISTRIBUTIONAL DATA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2020

Brandon T Ritchison Open the ORCID record for Brandon T Ritchison [Opens in a new window]
Brandon T Ritchison*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Anthropology, Urbana, IL61801-3028USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: britch@illinois.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Population density is an important variable in the development of social complexity. Estimating population densities from the archaeological record requires combining estimates of population, area, and time. Archaeological population estimates tend to be reported as a maximum population derived from the total accumulation of discrete archaeological material types, usually ceramics or radiocarbon (14C) dates. However, given the palimpsest nature of the archaeological record at recurrently occupied archaeological sites, these maximal, total estimates are, at best, a poor reflection of contemporaneous populations. I present a method for calculating average yearly population densities for occupations at a large, multicomponent site using a combination of distributional data and 60 14C dates. By employing this method at other sites in the same region, modeling intra-regional population dynamics at fine time scales will be possible.

Keywords

Bayesian modelingceramicscoastalpaleodemographysettlement
Type
Conference Paper
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 62 , Issue 6: Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium , December 2020 , pp. 1577 - 1597
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press for 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.)

Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 9th Radiocarbon & Archaeology Symposium, Athens, GA, USA, 20–24 May 2019

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, DG. 1994. The Savannah River chiefdoms: political change in the late prehistoric Southeast. Tuscaloosa (AL): University of Alabama Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, DG, Stahle, DW, Cleaveland, MK. 1995. Paleoclimate and the potential food reserves of Mississippian societies: a case study from the Savannah River Valley. American Antiquity 60(2):258–286.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrus, CFT, Thompson, VD. 2012. Determining the habitats of mollusk collection at the Sapelo Island shell ring complex, Georgia, USA using oxygen isotope sclerochronology. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(2):215–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armit, I, Swindles, GT, Becker, K. 2013. From dates to demography in Later Prehistoric Ireland? Experimental approaches to the meta-analysis of large 14C data-sets. Journal of Archaeological Science 40(1):433–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arthur, JW. 2009. Understanding household population through ceramic assemblage formation: ceramic ethnoarchaeology among the Gamo of southwestern Ethiopia. American Antiquity 74(1): 31–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bailey, G. 2007. Time perspectives, palimpsests and the archaeology of time. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26(2):198–223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bamforth, DB, Grund, B. 2012. Radiocarbon calibration curves, summed probability distributions, and early Paleoindian population trends in North America. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(6):1768–1774.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bandy, MS. 2004. Fissioning, scalar stress, and social evolution in early village societies. American Anthropologist 106(2):322–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayliss, A. 2009. Rolling out revolution: using radiocarbon dating in archaeology. Radiocarbon 51(1):123–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bintliff, J, Sbonias, K, editors. 2016. Reconstructing past population trends in Mediterranean Europe (3000 BC–AD 1800). Oxford: Oxbow Books.Google Scholar
Bocquet-Appel, JP, Demars, PY, Noire, L, Dobrowsky, D. 2005. Estimates of Upper Palaeolithic meta-population size in Europe from archaeological data. Journal of Archaeological Science 32(11):1656–1668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brannan, S, Birch, J. 2017. Settlement ecology at Singer-Moye: Mississippian history and demography in the Southeastern United States. In: Kellett, LC, Jones, EE, editors. Settlement Ecology of the Ancient Americas. New York: Routledge. p. 57–84.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51(1):337–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2017. Methods for summarizing radiocarbon datasets. Radiocarbon 59(6):1809–1833.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, WA. 2015. Through a filter, darkly: population size estimation, systematic error, and random error in radiocarbon-supported demographic temporal frequency analysis. Journal of Archaeological Science 53:133–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, CM. 1990. The effect of varying estimates of pit structure use-life on prehistoric population estimates in the American Southwest. Kiva 55(2):155–166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Casselberry, SE. 1974. Further refinement of formulae for determining population from floor area. World Archaeology 6(1):117–122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Colaninno, CE, Compton, JM. 2019. Integrating vertebrate and invertebrate season of capture data from Ring III of the Sapelo Island Shell Ring complex (9MC23), Georgia, USA. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 14(4):560–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Contreras, DA, Meadows, J. 2014. Summed radiocarbon calibrations as a population proxy: a critical evaluation using a realistic simulation approach. Journal of Archaeological Science. 52: 591–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crook, MR. 1978. Mississippi period community organizations on the Georgia Coast [PhD dissertation]. Gainesville (FL): Department of Anthropology, University of Florida.Google Scholar
Crook, MR. 1980a. Archaeological indications of community structures at the Kenan Field site. In: Juengst, DP, editor. Sapelo papers: researches in the history and prehistory of Sapelo Island, Georgia. Carrollton (GA): West Georgia College: Studies in the Social Sciences p. 89–100.Google Scholar
Crook, MR. 1980b. Spatial associations and distribution of aggregate village sites in a southeastern Atlantic coastal area. In: Juengst, DP, editor. Sapelo Papers: Researches in the History and Prehistory of Sapelo Island, Georgia. Carrollton (GA): West Georgia College: Studies in the Social Sciences. p. 77–88.Google Scholar
Crook, MR. 1986. Mississippi period archaeology of the Georgia coastal zone. Athens (GA): University of Georgia, Laboratory of Archaeology Series No. 23.Google Scholar
Davis, JR, Walker, CP, Blitz, JH. 2015. Remote sensing as community settlement analysis at Moundville. American Antiquity 80(1):161–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DePratter, CB. 1991. W.P.A. archaeological excavations in Chatham County, Georgia: 1937–1942. Athens (GA): Univerity of Georgia, Laboratory of Archaeology Series No. 29.Google Scholar
DePratter, CB, Thompson, VD. 2013. Past shorelines of the Georgia coast. In: Thompson, VD, Thomas, DH, editors. Life among the tides: recent archaeology on the Georgia Bight. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 98. p. 145–168.Google Scholar
Dewar, RE. 1991. Incorporating variation in occupation span into settlement-pattern analysis. American Antiquity 56(4):604–620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grove, M. 2012. Scatters, patches and palimpsests: solving the contemporaneity problem. In: Ruebens, K, Romanowska, I, Bynoe, R, editors. Unravelling the Palaeolithic. Ten years of research at the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins (CAHO, University of Southampton). Oxford: Archaeopress. p. 153–164.Google Scholar
Hagstrum, MB. 1989. Technological continuity and change: ceramic ethnoarchaeology in the Peruvian Andes [PhD dissertation]. Los Angeles: Department of Anthropology, University of California Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Hassan, FA. 1981. Demographic archaeology. New York: Academic Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, EE, DeWitte, SN. 2012. Using spatial analysis to estimate depopulation for Native American populations in northeastern North America, AD 1616–1645. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31(1):83–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keene, DA, Garrison, EG. 2013. A survey of Irene Phase architecture on the Georgia Coast. In: Thompson, VD, Thomas, DH, editors. Life among the tides: recent archaeology on the Georgia Bight. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 98. p. 289–316.Google Scholar
Larsen, CS. 1990. The archaeology of Mission Santa Catalina de Guale: 2. Biocultural interpretations of a population in transition. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 68.Google Scholar
Liebmann, MJ, Farella, J, Roos, CI, Stack, A, Martini, S, Swetnam, TW. 2016. Native American depopulation, reforestation, and fire regimes in the Southwest United States, 1492–1900 CE. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113(6):E696–E704.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Milner, GR. 1986. Mississippian period population density in a segment of the central Mississippi River Valley. American Antiquity 51(2): 227–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milner, GR, Chaplin, G. 2010. Eastern North American population at ca. AD 1500. American Antiquity 75(4):707–726.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milner, GR, Chaplin, G, Zavodny, E. 2013. Conflict and societal change in late prehistoric eastern North America. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews 22(3):96–102.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moore, CB. 1897. Certain aboriginal mounds of the Georgia Coast. Journal of the Academy of Natural Science of Philadelphia 11:1–138.Google Scholar
Napolitano, MF. 2013. The role of small islands in foraging economies of St. Catherines Island. In: Thompson, VD, Thomas, DH, editors. Life among the tides: recent archaeology on the Georgia Bight. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 98. p. 191–210.Google Scholar
Naroll, R. 1962. Floor area and settlement population. American Antiquity 27(4):587–589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, CE. 1977. Analysis of late prehistoric settlement on Ossabaw Island, Georgia. Athens: University of Georgia, Laboratory of Archaeology Series No. 12.Google Scholar
Pearson, CE. 1978. Analysis of Late Mississippian settlements on Ossabaw Island, Georgia. In: Smith, BD, editor. Mississippian settlement patterns. New York: Academic Press. p. 53–80.Google Scholar
Pearson, CE. 2014. Prehistoric settlement and sites on Ossabaw Island, Georgia: an atlas. Athens (GA): University of Georgia, Laboratory of Archaeology, Manuscript 614.Google Scholar
Peros, MC, Munoz, SE, Gajewski, K, Viau, AE. 2010. Prehistoric demography of North America inferred from radiocarbon data. Journal of Archaeological Science 37(3):656–664.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pluckhahn, TJ, McKivergan, DA. 2002. A critical appraisal of Middle Mississippian settlement and social organization on the Georgia coast. Southeastern Archaeology 21(2):149–161.Google Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Beck, JW, Blackwell, PG, Bronk Ramsey, C, Buck, CE, Cheng, H, Edwards, RL, Friedrich, M, Grootes, PM, Guilderson, TP. 2013. IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55(4):1869–1887.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rick, JW. 1987. Dates as data: an examination of the Peruvian preceramic radiocarbon record. American Antiquity 52(1):55–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchison, BT. 2018a. Exploring a Bayesian method for examining the regional ceramic sequence along the Georgia Coast. Southeastern Archaeology 37(1):12–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchison, BT. 2018b. Investigating 14th century immigration and settlement response on the Georgia Coast, USA. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 21:606–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ritchison, BT. 2019. The downstream effects of abandonment: 14th century AD immigration and settlement response on the Georgia Coast, USA [PhD dissertation]. Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanger, MC. 2013. Ever-shifting landscapes: tracking changing spatial usage along coastal Georgia. In: Thompson, VD, Thomas, DH, editors. Life among the tides: recent archaeology on the Georgia Bight. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 98. p. 211–234.Google Scholar
Sanger, MC, Ogden, QM. 2018. Determining the use of Late Archaic shell rings using lithic data: “Ceremonial villages” and the importance of stone. Southeastern Archaeology 37(3):232–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanger, MC, Quitmyer, IR, Colaninno, CE, Cannarozzi, N, Ruhl, DL. 2019. Multiple-proxy seasonality indicators: an integrative approach to assess shell midden formations from late archaic shell rings in the coastal southeast North America. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. doi: 10.1080/15564894.2019.1614116.Google Scholar
Schacht, RM. 1984. The contemporaneity problem. American Antiquity 49(4):678–695.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shennan, S, Edinborough, K. 2007. Prehistoric population history: from the Late Glacial to the Late Neolithic in Central and Northern Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science. 34(8):1339–1345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shennan, S, Downey, SS, Timpson, A, Edinborough, K, Colledge, S, Kerig, T, Manning, K, Thomas, MG. 2013. Regional population collapse followed initial agriculture booms in mid-Holocene Europe. Nature Communications 4(1):1–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, MA, Williams, AN, Turney, CSM, Cupper, ML. 2008. Human-environment interactions in Australian drylands: exploratory time-series analysis of archaeological records. The Holocene 18(3):389–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, J. 2010. Radiocarbon dates as data: quantitative strategies for estimating colonization front speeds and event densities. Journal of Archaeological Science 37(8):2017–2030.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, AP. 2008. Ethnoarchaeological and archaeological perspectives on ceramic vessels and annual accumulation rates of sherds. American Antiquity 73(1):121–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surovell, TA, Brantingham, PJ. 2007. A note on the use of temporal frequency distributions in studies of prehistoric demography. Journal of Archaeological Science 34(11):1868–1877.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surovell, TA, Finley, JB, Smith, GM, Brantingham, PJ, Kelly, R. 2009. Correcting temporal frequency distributions for taphonomic bias. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(8):1715–1724.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, DH. 2008a. Native American landscapes of St. Catherines Island, Georgia, Vol. I. The theoretical framework. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 88.Google Scholar
Thomas, DH. 2008b. Native American landscapes of St. Catherines Island, Georgia, Vol. II. The data. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 88.Google Scholar
Thomas, DH. 2008c. Native American landscapes of St. Catharines Island, Georgia, Vol. III. Synthesis and implications. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 88.Google Scholar
Thomas, DH, Sanger, MC, Royce, H. 2013. Revising the 14C reservoir correction for St. Catherines Island, Georgia. In: Thompson, VD, Thomas, DH, editors. Life among the tides: recent archaeology on the Georgia Bight. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 98. p. 25–46.Google Scholar
Thompson, VD, Andrus, CFT. 2011. Evaluating mobility, monumentality, and feasting at the Sapelo Island shell ring complex. American Antiquity 76(2):315–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, VD, Andrus, CFT. 2013. Using oxygen isotope sclerochronology to evaluate the role of small islands among the Guale (AD 1325 to 1700) of the Georgia Coast, USA. The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology 8(2):190–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, VD, Turck, JA. 2010. Island Archaeology and the Native American Economies (2500 B.C.–A.D. 1700) of the Georgia Coast. Journal of Field Archaeology 35(3):283–297.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, VD, Turck, JA, DePratter, CB. 2013. Cumulatvie actions and the historical ecology of islands along the Georgia coast. In: Thompson, VD, Waggoner, JC, editors. The Archaeology and Historical Ecology of Small Scale Economies. Gainesville (FL): University Press of Florida.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, VD, Worth, JE. 2011. Dwellers by the sea: Native American adaptations along the southern coasts of Eastern North America. Journal of Archaeological Research 19(1):51–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timpson, A, Colledge, S, Crema, E, Edinborough, K, Kerig, T, Manning, K, Thomas, MG, Shennan, S. 2014. Reconstructing regional population fluctuations in the European Neolithic using radiocarbon dates: a new case-study using an improved method. Journal of Archaeological Science 52:549–557.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turck, JA, Alexander, CR. 2013. Coastal landscapes and their relationship to human settlement on the Georgia Coast. In: Thompson, VD, Thomas, DH, editors. Life among the tides: recent archaeology on the Georgia Bight. New York: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, No. 98. p. 169–189.Google Scholar
Turck, JA, Thompson, VD. 2016. Revisiting the resilience of Late Archaic hunter-gatherers along the Georgia coast. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 43:39–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varien, MD, Mills, BJ. 1997. Accumulations research: problems and prospects for estimating site occupation span. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 4(2):141–191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, CP. 2009. Landscape archaeogeophysics: a study of magnetometer surveys from Etowah (9BR1), the George C. Davis site (41CE19), and the Hill Farm site (41BW169) [PhD dissertation]. Austin (TX): Department of Anthropology, University of Texas.Google Scholar
Warrick, G. 2008. A population history of the Huron-Petun, AD 500–1650. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, AN. 2012. The use of summed radiocarbon probability distributions in archaeology: a review of methods. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(3):578–589.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, M, Thompson, VD. 1999. A guide to Georgia Indian pottery types. Early Georgia 27(1):1–167.Google Scholar
Wood, R. 2015. From revolution to convention: the past, present and future of radiocarbon dating. Journal of Archaeological Science 56:61–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Ritchison et al. supplementary material

Ritchison et al. supplementary material 1

Download Ritchison et al. supplementary material(File)
File 18.4 KB
Supplementary material: File

Ritchison et al. supplementary material

Ritchison et al. supplementary material 2

Download Ritchison et al. supplementary material(File)
File 14.1 KB