Synthesis and analysis of the Early to Middle Holocene radiocarbon record for the Northern Northwest Coast of North America: A gap in dated components between ∼9000 and 8300 cal BP

Abstract

The Northern Northwest Coast of North America has consistently been an epicenter of hunter-gatherer research, but attention has focused on the period after 5000 cal BP. Using data largely produced within the past 12 years, we present the first synthesis and analysis of this region’s ¹⁴C record between ∼11000 and 5000 cal BP. Our analysis produced two primary findings (i) that the number of dated sites does not increase or decrease significantly during this period and (ii) there is an unexplained gap in dated sites across the entire region between ∼9000 and 8300 cal BP. The existence of this gap has critical implications regarding hypotheses of technological change, migration, population continuity, and cultural evolution for the region. However, available explanations for this gap are problematic. Possible causes investigated include: demographic abandonment of the region, distorting effects of the calibration curve, sea-level change, taphonomy, and sampling error. All are found to be inadequate.

Keywords:

• Northwest Coast archaeology
• Haida Gwaii
• Southeast Alaska
• Prince Rupert Harbour
• demography

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the generous help provided by Andrew Martindale, who helped turn early outlines of this work into an actual paper. Special recognition also goes to Bryn Letham and Kevan Edinborough who helped the authors work through ideas and better understand the complexities of sea-level histories and radiocarbon analysis. Lastly, we would like to thank Jonathan Duelks for his willingness to endlessly talk through this paper and provide feedback. This project was generously supported by the NSF (Grant # 1216847) and SSHRC (Grant # 410-2011-0814). During the review process, the second author on this paper, Kenneth M. Ames passed away. Ken was my advisor, my colleague, and a mentor. I will forever be honored to have been his student and even more so to have been able to call him a friend. I know I am not alone when I say I cannot express how much Ken will be missed.

Disclosure statement

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