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，其中大部分是法律授权的，以减轻与建设/开发活动相关的影响。为了获得最大的回报，有必要开发方法来集成和分析跨越多个站点和项目的大量数据。这项研究项目进一步推动了这一目标。放射性碳测年是北美考古学家用来记录考古遗址年代的主要方法，为了获得这些年代，联邦政府已经花费了数百万美元。有了这样的大样本，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：人口在哪里以及何时上升和下降？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，以调查几个学科中的许多不同问题。汇编这些日期很耗时，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、专著和灰色文献中。此外，研究人员需要收集的不仅仅是日期本身，还有与日期相关的信息，以“清理”数据库，并创建对他们的研究有用的样本。加州、俄勒冈州、华盛顿州、爱达荷州、内华达州、犹他州、亚利桑那州、新墨西哥州、科罗拉多州、怀俄明州和蒙大拿州的日期将从现有的地区数据库中汇编出来，通过“深度潜水”网络搜索，并向专业和业余组织进行众包。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，汇编的日期和相关信息将通过加拿大考古放射性碳数据库公开提供，该数据库将有一个谷歌地球链接，以便可以研究日期(人口)分布的时间和空间模式。研究人员将能够轻松地将日期分批上传到这个数据库，以保持其最新。虽然重点放在北美西部，但也打算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。放射性碳测年的总和概率分布通常被用来衡量史前人口数量。因此，该数据库将利用对北美所有与人口有关的现象的研究。研究人员可以用它来检验假设：(A)人类人口对气候变化、技术创新、移民和疾病的反应；(B)将战争、移民和技术创新等行为与人口压力联系起来的假设；(C)从遗传数据中得出的假设，例如，假设人口瓶颈。这个项目将(A)为研究人员创建一个免费的公共档案，以加强学术界和私营(CRM)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的资源；(B)帮助北美考古学走向它的下一个前沿--“大数据”，因为考古学的优势是它能够看到跨越广阔空间和时间的模式；(C)这个项目将有助于推动美国学术考古学文化的转变，使其转向一种更适合物理和自然科学研究人员的模式，即创建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.