Radiocarbon Dating the Fur Trade: Bayesian Analyses of Fur-Trade Era Radiocarbon Dates from the Lower Columbia River
Sponsor
The research was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (Grant RZ-50601-06).
Published In
International Journal of Historical Archaeology
Document Type
Citation
Publication Date
7-2018
Abstract
The fur trade era is difficult to radiocarbon date. We demonstrate Bayesian methods robustly resolve some of the issues, applying them to radiocarbon date samples from two fur-trade era Native villages on the Lower Columbia River. Cathlapotle has a rich fur trade era documentary and artifact record; Meier has no documentary record and a sparse fur-trade era artifact record.We successfully tested the methods on Cathlapotle as a proof of concept and resolved empirical issues at both sites. The analysis suggests depopulation of both sites, probably resulting from epidemics, began in the mid to late eighteenth century but before direct contact.
Rights
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1007/s10761-018-0466-1
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/26063
Citation Details
Ames, Kenneth & Brown, Thomas. (2018). Radiocarbon Dating the Fur Trade: Bayesian Analyses of Fur-Trade Era Radiocarbon Dates from the Lower Columbia River. International Journal of Historical Archaeology. 10.1007/s10761-018-0466-1