Prehistoric demography of North America inferred from radiocarbon data

Spatiotemporal distribution of Holocene populations in North America

“…exercises (Supporting Information), indicate that this amount and distribution of dates are sufficiently representative to begin studying past populations at a continental scale (2).…”

“…We appreciate that taphonomy may vary spatially but apply a spatially constant taphonomic correction to the maps (2,25) because the undertaking of how, where, and by how much this should be varied requires more study at regional scales. We propose that areas along some coastlines may require an even greater correction due to the loss of accessible archaeological sites as a consequence of sea level rise, or due to reduced sampling of higher elevation stranded shorelines.…”

“…D atabases of radiocarbon dates obtained from archaeological sites are used as a source of information about past demographic changes of Holocene populations (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). These are typically analyzed using summed probability distributions for a given region, which are interpreted as time series of site occupancy and inferred population tendency.…”

“…These are typically analyzed using summed probability distributions for a given region, which are interpreted as time series of site occupancy and inferred population tendency. For example, frequency distributions have been used to estimate continental-scale population growth in North America (North America here means the United States and Canada, the extent of our database) over the past 15 ka using the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD) (2,3). Regional studies in North America have highlighted the impacts of environmental change on population size using these methods and documented the impact of human activities on the vegetation (1,(6)(7)(8)(9)(10).…”

On Applications of Space–Time Modelling with Open-Source 14C Age Calibration

“…These studies build on pioneering continental-scale studies also published in recent years (e.g. Hinz et al 2012;Peros et al 2010;Shennan et al 2013;Timpson et al 2014;Wang et al 2014;Williams 2013). The current high level of interest in this kind of work doubtless has many causes, including (a) the fact that available archaeological data have now reached a critical mass, allowing the work to proceed (b) hyper-familiarity by archaeologists with computers and the internet, which now pervade virtually every aspect of modern life, (c) nextgeneration ancient DNA work which has invigorated interest in demography and population history and (d) a broader shift towards Bdigital humanities^, positioning archaeology at the interface between scientific research and BBig Data^(for an extended discussion, see Kristiansen 2014).…”