Dating the expansion of the Late Mississippian chiefdom of Joara; preliminary Bayesian modeling of AMS radiocarbon data from Western North Carolina

Abstract

Abstract Recent applications of Bayesian chronological modeling on AMS radiocarbon data in North America have been expanding chronological interpretations of periods with calibration plateaus and reversals, such as the period from the 15th through 16th centuries, CE. This period of time coincides with the earliest interactions between Indigenous and Spanish peoples, incidentally providing calendrical dates from ethnohistoric and material sources. Twenty-three new AMS radiocarbon dates were measured from two archaeological sites and were compared to extant legacy radiocarbon data from 12 sites across the Western North Carolina Piedmont. Moving beyond Eurocentric material-based chronologies, this article presents a series of preliminary Bayesian models that expand current knowledges concerning the social geography of the region and demonstrate the utility in AMS radiocarbon data in early contact and colonial contexts of the North American interior.