Bayesian analysis of the chronology of the Lynch site (25BD1) and comparisons to the Central Plains Tradition and Central Plains Oneota

Abstract

This paper presents a series of new radiocarbon dates on the Lynch site (25BD1), an Initial Coalescent site in northeastern Nebraska, and takes a Bayesian approach to examining them in three contexts. First, we consider what they tell us about the chronology of occupation at the site itself. Second, we combine them with dates on other sites in the Ponca Creek drainage to consider the chronological pattern of horticultural settlement there. Finally, we compare the Ponca Creek dates to the radiocarbon chronologies for the Central Plains tradition and Central Plains Oneota. Our analysis indicates that people settled Lynch from east to west and abandoned it from west to east between roughly AD 1250 and 1350. At its maximum extent, farmers appear to have occupied the full 80 ha extent of the site. As farmers settled Lynch, closely related people settled upstream on Ponca Creek. People abandoned these communities shortly before they abandoned Lynch. Farmers settled on Ponca Creek as a whole shortly after the major expansion of Central Plains tradition (CPt) ways of life and the appearance of Central Plains Oneota towns and abandoned that area a generation or two before CPt communities disappeared. Central Plains Oneota communities persisted into the mid 1400s. The Lynch/Ponca Creek pattern is consistent with the movement of Central Plains populations into the southern portion of the Middle Missouri in the early 1300s.

KEYWORDS:

• Lynch site
• Initial Coalescent
• Central Plains tradition
• Oneota
• Bayesian analysis
• radiocarbon dating

Acknowledgements

We are deeply grateful to History Nebraska, who funded our dating program on the Lynch site, and to John Rissetto, who convinced them it was worth doing. Nebraska State Archaeologist Rob Bozell and Alan Osborne and Katelyn Trammel at the Nebraska State Museum gave us access to the existing Lynch site collections. Curt and Laurie Helgenberger have made it possible for us to work on their part of the Lynch site; we cannot thank them enough for their gracious hospitality. Thank you to Matt Reed, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Pawnee Nation, for his time reading through this paper. And colleagues are gifts: we have profited from a collaboration with Matt Sponheimer and Christina Ryder of the Anthropology Department at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1080/00320447.2021.1895514.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by History Nebraska.

Notes on contributors

Carlton Shield Chief Gover

Carlton Shield-Chief Gover is a doctoral student in the Anthropology program at the University of Colorado Boulder and an enrolled member of the Pawnee nation.

Douglas B. Bamforth

Douglas B. Bamforth is a professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Kristen Carlson

Kristen Carlson is an associate professor in the Anthropology Department at Augustana University in Sioux Falls, SD.