Radiocarbon re-dating of contact-era Iroquoian history in northeastern North America

Abstract

Radiocarbon data suggest the need to reconsider current dates and assumptions for contact-era Iroquoian history.

Contact-Era Chronology Building in Iroquoia: Age Estimates for Arendarhonon Sites and Implications for Identifying Champlain's Cahiagué

“…We can thus investigate and quantify various possible assumptions concerning the order and duration of site occupations to produce refined age estimates for the sites. Our results indicate that Warminster was occupied during 1615–1616 (see also Manning et al 2018). In addition, both the archaeological evidence and the radiocarbon evidence (independently) suggest the following set of outcomes: Ball, considered the immediate predecessor village of the same community later located at the Warminster site, was earlier than Warminster.Sopher was perhaps earlier than the Ball site but may also have overlapped.Benson chronologically preceded Warminster, Ball, and Sopher and, although not necessarily in a direct site relocation sequence (but cf.…”

“…Rerunning Model 1 minus UGAMS-25451, just one date remains as a larger outlier, being greater than 7%: UGAMS-25451-r (O:22/5). This is again too old—although in this case and for UGAMS-25451, this old age may reflect the calibration curve taphonomy and the marked wiggle ~1603–1607 (Manning et al 2018:Figure S5). We therefore exclude these two dates from the analysis in Model 2, which runs with no outliers above 7% probability and good Amodel and Aoverall OxCal diagnostic values.…”

“…William Fox (personal communication 2015), who participated in excavations at the site in the 1960s, recalled that palisade posts also were observed intact in the field, suggesting that similarly sized structural remains were likely present in the village itself. A dendro-wiggle-match date for the last preserved ring on the post, previously described by Manning and colleagues (2018), comprised 57 tree rings with inner tree rings and pith absent. There was no bark and the sample was only partially preserved, so the number of tree rings missing from the extant outer ring of the sample to the original bark is not known.…”

“…The Benson–Sopher–Ball–Warminster sequence and dates and other work on the West Duffins sequence comprising the Draper, Spang, and Jean-Baptiste Lainé (Mantle) sites and dates (Manning et al 2018) begin to open a new window onto a widespread reconsideration of previous archaeological synthesis and the potential resolution of past challenges. One example is the now venerable archaeometric study of Trigger and colleagues (1980) on a set of Iroquoian ceramics.…”

Quaternary Highlights (September–December 2018)

“…For further relevant readings, see Freeman et al [10], González-Guarda et al [ [31], and Wang et al [32].…”