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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: [email protected].
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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
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press for the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona

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Footnotes

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

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