Abstract
The fur trade era is difficult to radiocarbon date. We demonstrate Bayesian methods robustly resolve some of the issues, applying them to radiocarbon date samples from two fur-trade era Native villages on the Lower Columbia River. Cathlapotle has a rich fur trade era documentary and artifact record; Meier has no documentary record and a sparse fur-trade era artifact record. We successfully tested the methods on Cathlapotle as a proof of concept and resolved empirical issues at both sites. The analysis suggests depopulation of both sites, probably resulting from epidemics, began in the mid to late eighteenth century but before direct contact.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the late Don Meier for access to the Meier site and his support and encouragement of the excavations. We also thank the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde for their on-going interest and support of the excavations and analyses. The excavations themselves were fiscally supported by Portland State University, and Jean and Ray Auel. We thank the staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Ridgefield Wildlife refuge for their support during and after the Cathlapotle excavations, as well as the people of Ridgefield WA. Anan Raymond, Regional Archaeologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has given the project unflagging support. The Cathlapotle project was his idea. The Cathlapotle excavations were fiscally supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Portland State University and Jean and Ray Auel. We also thank the Chinook Nation for their continuing support, encouragement, and interest in both the excavations and analyses. The radiocarbon dating program at both sites was funded by Portland State University, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Jean and Ray Auel and the National Endowment for the Humanities (Grant RZ-50601-06). While many people have contributed to the work in reported in various ways, for this paper we highlight Cameron Smith, Elizabeth Sobel, Stephen Hamilton, William Gardener-O’Kearny and Douglas Wilson. We particularly thank Kevan Edinborough for his tireless tutelage in Bayesian methods. All errors, of course, are ours.
Funding
The research was supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (Grant RZ-50601-06), Portland State University, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Jean and Ray Auel.
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Ames, K.M., Brown, T.J. Radiocarbon Dating the Fur Trade: Bayesian Analyses of Fur-Trade Era Radiocarbon Dates from the Lower Columbia River. Int J Histor Archaeol 23, 283–312 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-018-0466-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-018-0466-1
Keywords
- Fur trade
- Radiocarbon
- Bayesian methods
- Columbia River