Characterizing the degree of disturbance in archaeological deposits is critically important for archaeologists assessing foraging strategies, environmental conditions, or behavior patterns of ancient human groups. Qualitative techniques (e.g. micromorphology analysis) have previously been applied to assess the degree of disturbance (age-mixing) in archaeological sites; however, quantitative dating of material in the sites provides a more robust assessment of potential age-mixing. Unfortunately, because of budget constraints, archaeologists are frequently forced to rely on few quantitative age dates for an assemblage, thus obfuscating the signal of age-mixing of the deposit. The development of an affordable and rapid carbonate-target accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon ( 14 C) dating method provides a cost-effective way to retrieve more quantitative dates from carbonate material in archaeological assemblages to assess the degree of age-mixing in the deposit. This study tests this new technique and dates numerous harvested marine limpet shells from archaeological sites in the Canary Islands to determine whether there is multidecadal to multicentennial age-mixing. A total of 58 shells retrieved from six sites and three islands yielded uncalibrated radiocarbon ages ranging from 2265 ± 40 to 765 ± 35 BP, coinciding with the time of prehistoric human occupation in these islands. While most shells from the same stratum showed statistically equivalent ages, in some cases we detected age ranges that exceeded the imprecisions from analytical errors. This investigation is one of the first to quantitatively illustrate that shells retrieved from depth intervals without evident stratigraphic disturbance do not always contain contemporaneous remains and, therefore, dating each specimen is valuable for developing further paleoclimatic and paleoanthropological inferences. This study presents the first report of carbonate-target 14 C ages from archaeological shell middens, and suggests that this novel radiocarbon methodology can be applied to these sites, thus allowing the generation of a more comprehensive chronology.
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A Layered Approach for the Discovery and Mapping of Prehistoric Sites Beneath Lake Huron
Abstract For much of modern human history (roughly the last 200,000 years), global sea levels have been lower than present. As such, it is hardly surprising that archaeologists increasingly are looking to submarine environments to address some of their most pressing questions. While underwater archaeology is most commonly associated with shipwrecks, the search for submerged prehistoric sites presents an entirely different set of challenges, even though many of the same technologies are used. For Great Lakes archaeologists, the problem is how best to adapt the range of available seafloor mapping and testing techniques to the problem of identifying prehistoric sites, while operating with smaller vessels and the limited budgets available to “normal” archaeology. In this paper, we briefly describe the approach we have developed at the University of Michigan for identifying 9,000-year-old caribou hunting sites beneath Lake Huron. The research employs a layered research design integrating sonars, remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), and scuba divers at progressively finer scales to discover and investigate these important new archaeological sites.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1744367
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10172298
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Marine Technology Society Journal
- Volume:
- 54
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 0025-3324
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 23 to 32
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.4031/MTSJ.54.3.4
