An 11-mound site in Louisiana predates other known mound complexes with earthen enclosures in North America by 1900 years. Radiometric, luminescence, artifactual, geomorphic, and pedogenic data date the site to over 5000 calendar years before present. Evidence suggests that the site was occupied by hunter-gatherers who seasonally exploited aquatic resources and collected plant species that later became the first domesticates in eastern North America.
Since its development as a dating tool, archaeologists have struggled with the interpretation of radiocarbon data due to its limitations in accuracy and precision. These limitations are presented and reviewed in terms of how archaeologists might resolve some of the problems in using this data. A new procedure, the OCR, is introduced as a means of improving the interpret-ability of radiocarbon data, and as a potential solution to some of the more problematic limits of the radiocarbon procedure. The OCR procedure provides an independent analysis of age for charcoal found in soil. This procedure is based on the chemical analysis of charcoal within definable environmental contexts. As such, it is not restricted by the limits of the nuclear-based radiocarbon procedure. The OCR procedure offers an inexpensive, accurate, and precise dating procedure for archaeologists.
We discuss the analysis of 39 Oxidizable Carbon Ratio (OCR) dates obtained from the Late Caddoan Morse Mounds site (41SY27), in the far eastern part of the state of Texas. This is one of the largest OCR dating studies completed in Northeast Texas. We also considered how soils behave as living, open systems and provide a brief introduction to the OCR Carbon Dating procedure. Data from close-interval sampling of the soil column describe the soil's physiology and provide a spatial and temporal context for evaluating the accuracy of the OCR Carbon Dating procedure in independently establishing the age of this archeological site.
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