Evaluating Long Term Population Continuity Through Radiocarbon Dating

This project addresses the question of how and why St. Lawrence Iroquoian peoples disappeared from one river valley in the early colonial period. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries AD Iroquois relocated away from the valley, abandoning all permanent settlements. This project develops a high-resolution radiocarbon chronology to determine the timing and directionality of this population movement. The current lack of chronological resolution prevents appropriate understanding of the effects of warfare, European encroachment, disease, and climatic change during the sixteenth century—a critical period which encompasses the formation of Indigenous confederacies and initial European colonization. The project includes researchers from the Huron-Wendat Nation Bureau du Nionwentsïo (overseeing culture, territory, and heritage for the Nation), the University of Georgia, Cornell University, and the University of Montreal. The project is explicitly designed to advance Indigenous-led research agendas and provide a model for the co-production of knowledge and its dissemination. This project combats Indigenous erasure by centering the long-term presence of Iroquoian peoples. It illuminates the intentional actions and decisions made by First Nations peoples during the sixteenth century. Cutting-edge approaches to radiocarbon dating, charcoal identification, and statistical modelling of large suites of radiocarbon dates are critical to the team’s approach. Careful sample selection from existing collections and use of small samples in modern accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating maximizes the utility of the archaeological record while causing minimal impacts to that record. The project leverages methodological innovations for overcoming challenges in the radiocarbon calibration curve developed as part of the investigators previous NSF-funded research and takes advantage of recent greater refinement in the 14C calibration curve for the last millennium. Training opportunities are provided for undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Georgia. A reference collection will be generated that will be used in courses on dendrochronology and that can be used for future research. The methods employed by this project serve as a model for researchers working in other regions for developing high-resolution timeframes to explore critical events in global history. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.