Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Alternatives To Charcoal For Improving Chronometric Dating Of Puget Sound Archaeological Sites, James W. Brown

All Master's Theses

Radiocarbon dating of archaeological sites in the Puget Lowlands can be problematic. Dating specific cultural events associated with features and sites is difficult due to the ubiquity of charcoal in forest soils and poor preservation of bone in acidic soils. These conditions have impeded the development of regional cultural chronologies. The lack of dates for critical time periods also inhibits testing processual models of cultural change. Evidence for the timing and rate of ecological, economic, and political change is critical for testing evolutionary models in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Radiocarbon dating highly burned bone (calcined bone) and luminescence dating fire-modified …