The age of the Dalton culture: a Bayesian analysis of the radiocarbon data

ABSTRACT

Since a radiocarbon chronology of the Dalton culture in the Southeast was first proposed, several new sites have been dated. I propose a new chronology based on radiocarbon dates from sites in the Dalton Heartland and its eastern periphery using Bayesian statistical models in OxCal and an analysis of the associated diagnostic projectile points. The analyses indicate that the Dalton culture probably evolved from the Clovis or Gainey phenomena about 12,680?cal?BP (ca. 10,700?BP) and lasted at least until ca. 10,400?cal?BP (ca. 9,200?BP), if not several centuries later. I propose early and late Dalton phases that follow changes in how Dalton points were made and resharpened. It appears that the people living to the east of the Heartland followed a different trajectory of projectile point evolution. There, notched points appear about 11,500?cal?BP, while in the Heartland, true notched points do not appear in large numbers until the Graham Cave point over 2,000 years later. The chronologies demonstrate that early, coeval, region-wide cultural changes may not have been the norm. They also raise interesting questions about how people in the Heartland and its eastern periphery interacted.