Radiocarbon Dating and the Historical Archaeology of Korea: An Alternative Interpretation of Hongryeonbong Fortress II in the Three Kingdoms Period, Central Korea

ABSTRACT

Relying heavily upon historical records to build archaeological chronologies, many Korean historical archaeologists question the utility of radiocarbon dating. To challenge this tendency, we test a model based on historical records by analyzing radiocarbon dates. We dated two bulk samples from Hongryeonbong Fortress II, Seoul, South Korea, which is known historically to have been occupied between a.d. 500 and 551. By dividing bulk samples into smaller aliquots, we dated 40 subsamples and statistically estimated consensus dates. The consensus dates do not support expectations of the historical model, as they do not lie within the temporal range provided by historical records. We propose an alternative model that explains both the radiocarbon dates and the historical records. It is suggested that radiocarbon dating can be successfully applied to the reconstruction of historical periods and is a way of mitigating possible biases of models based solely on historical records.

KEYWORDS:

• historical archaeology
• radiocarbon dating
• chronology
• central Korea
• three kingdoms period
• Koguryo

Acknowledgments

We thank Sung-Mo Ahn, Seonho Choi, David K. Wright, Chang Ho Hyun, and two anonymous reviewers for providing valuable advice and comments. We also thank Jaehoon Hwang, Junkyu Kim, Jiwon Yang, Hyemin Yang, Seung Ho Kang, Arum Song, Jiyoung Park, and Matthew Conte for assistance in experiments and writing. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2013S1A5B6043901).

Notes on contributors

Jongtaik Choi (Ph.D. 1998, Seoul National University) is Professor in the Department of Archaeology and Art History and Director of the Korea Institute for Archaeology and Environment at Korea University in Sejong, Korea. His research interests include the archaeology of the Three Kingdoms Period of Korea, with a focus on Koguryo.

Youngseon Lee (M.S. 2007, Seoul National University) is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Statistics at Seoul National University, Korea. Her research interests include nonparametric regression and latent feature modeling in Bayesian statistics.

Jaeyong Lee (Ph.D. 1998, Purdue University) is Professor in the Department of Statistics at Seoul National University, Korea. His research area is Bayesian statistics.

Jangsuk Kim (Ph.D. 2002, Arizona State University) is Professor of Archaeology at Seoul National University, Korea. His research interests include northeast Asian prehistory and proto-history, social complexity, political economy, and archaeological methodology.

ORCID

Jangsuk Kim http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6997-6173