Journal
JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 52, Issue -, Pages 621-632Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2014.06.008
Keywords
Bayesian; Geochronology; Radiocarbon; Summed probabilities; Great Basin
Funding
- American Museum of Natural History
- Penn State
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Gatecliff Shelter provides a deeply stratified record of human-environment interaction in the Desert West spanning most of the middle and late Holocene. The well-preserved 10 m-deep deposits serve as an important reference sequence for technological and subsistence change in the Great Basin. Archaeological work started at Gatecliff in 1970 and a geochronological framework was established based on 47 uncalibrated radiocarbon (C-14) dates obtained from several conventional radiometric laboratories between 1972 and 1982. These radiocarbon dates are not well accommodated within a Bayesian chronological model for these important deposits due to multiple temporal reversals and large analytical errors. This model was discarded in favor of one based on a combination of high-precision AMS C-14 dates of short-lived carbonized plant remains supplemented with existing C-14 dates culled from the original set using a Bayesian chronological model. Summed probabilities of the modeled posterior distributions of these C-14 dates (N = 24) show episodic use of the shelter as a logistic hunting camp between 6050 and 3315 cal BP, a significant hiatus in occupation between 3315 and 2145 cal BP, and more persistent use by family bands after this time. In the future, this high-precision chronology will provide the foundation for reinterpreting broader patterns of technological and subsistence change in the Intermountain West and evaluating these changes relative to high-resolution climate records. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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