Populating a Radiocarbon Database of Western North America

联邦、州和地方政府每年花费数百万美元支持考古研究，其中大部分是法律规定的，以减轻与建筑/开发活动相关的影响。为了获得最大的回报，有必要开发方法来整合和分析跨多个站点和项目的大量数据。这项研究项目有助于进一步实现这一目标。放射性碳测年是北美考古学家用来记录考古遗址年龄的主要方法，数百万美元的联邦资金已用于获得这些日期。 有了这些日期的大量样本，考古学家可以生成“总和概率分布”来重建人口历史。 这些人口历史提供了北美古代历史的一个重要部分：人口在哪里和何时上升和下降？ 该项目将创建的数据库将为研究人员提供一个有用的工具，以研究多个学科中的许多不同问题。汇编这些日期很费时间，因为有数万个，而且它们发表在许多不同的地方，包括网络、书籍、期刊、专著和灰色文献。此外，不仅是日期本身必须汇编，而且研究人员还需要“清理”数据库并创建对他们的研究有用的样本。 通过“深入”网络搜索以及向专业和业余组织的众包，将从现有的区域数据库中汇编加州、俄勒冈州、华盛顿、爱达荷州、内华达州、犹他州、亚利桑那州、新墨西哥州、科罗拉多、怀俄明州和蒙大拿州的日期。主要的（私营部门）放射性碳实验室也表示愿意提供协助。 最终，将通过加拿大考古放射性碳数据库提供汇编的日期和相关信息，该数据库将与谷歌地球链接，以便研究日期（人口）分布的时间和空间模式。 研究人员将能够很容易地批量上传日期到这个数据库，以保持其最新。虽然重点是北美西部，但其目的是将数据库扩展到美国东部。 预计这将成为世界上最大的放射性碳年代数据库。 放射性碳年代的概率分布总和通常被用作史前人口规模的衡量标准。因此，该数据库将利用对北美所有与人口有关现象的研究。 研究人员可以用它来测试假设：（a）人类人口如何应对气候变化，技术创新，移民和疾病;（B）将战争，移民和技术创新等行为与人口压力联系起来;（c）从遗传数据中提取，例如，假设人口瓶颈。 该项目将（a）为研究人员建立一个免费的公共档案，加强学术界和私营部门的考古学研究基础设施，并为教育机构提供学生项目和课堂演示资源;（B）帮助北美考古学走向下一个前沿--“大数据”，因为考古学的优势在于它能够看到跨越时空的模式;以及（c）该项目将有助于促进美国学术考古学文化的转变，使其朝着更典型的研究人员模式发展在物理和自然科学中，数据库作为研究工具。

Federal, state and local governments spend millions of dollars each year to support archaeological research, much of it mandated by law to mitigate impacts associated with construction/development activities. To obtain maximum return it is necessary to develop methods to integrate and analyze large bodies of data which extend across multiple sites and projects. This research project serves to further that goal.Radiocarbon dating is the primary method that North American archaeologists use to document the ages of archaeology sites, and millions of dollars in federal funding has been spent in obtaining those dates. With large samples of such dates, archaeologists can generate "summed probability distributions" to reconstruct population histories. These population histories provide an important piece of North America's ancient history: where and when did populations rise and decline? The database this project will create will provide researchers with a useful tool to investigate many different problems in several disciplines. Compiling the dates is time-consuming, since there are tens of thousands, and since they are published in many different places, including on the web, in books, journals, monographs and in grey literature. In addition, it is not simply the dates themselves that must be compiled, but also their associated information that researchers need to "clean" the database and create a sample useful for their research. Dates will be compiled for California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana from existing regional databases, through "deep dive" web searches, and crowd-sourcing to professional and amateur organizations. The major (private sector) radiocarbon labs have also offered to assist. Eventually, the compiled dates and associated information will be made publically available through the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database, which will have a Google Earth link so that both temporal and spatial patterns in date (population) distributions can be studied. Researchers will be able to upload dates easily in batches to this database to keep it current. Although the focus is on western North America, the intention is to extend the database to the eastern U.S. as well. It is anticipated that this will become the world's largest database of radiocarbon dates. Summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates are commonly used as measures of prehistoric population sizes. Therefore, this database will leverage research into all population-related phenomena in North America. Researchers can use it to test hypotheses (a) of how human population responds to climate change, technological innovation, emigration, and disease; (b) that relate behaviors such as warfare, migration, and technological innovation to population pressure; (c) drawn from genetic data, e.g., that hypothesize population bottlenecks. Such a database will transform how hypotheses are tested and consequently how one understands North American prehistory.This project will (a) create a free, public archive for researchers that will enhance the research infrastructure of archaeology in the academic community and the private (CRM) sector and benefit educational institutions with a resource for student projects and class demonstrations; (b) help move North American archaeology toward its next frontier, "Big Data," since archaeology's strength is its ability to see patterns across vast reaches of space and time; and (c) this project will help catalyze a shift in the culture of American academic archaeology by moving it toward a model that is more typical of researchers in the physical and natural sciences that create databases as research tools.