Long-term rhythms in the development of Hawaiian social stratification

A model-based approach to the tempo of “collapse”: The case of Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

“…Moving past this generalization requires developing chronological models for these events involved in monument construction activities. Like with many chronological issues in archaeology, formal Bayesian models provide a useful tool to better resolve temporal patterns of monument construction (e.g., Carter et al, 2019;Chirikure et al, 2013;Culleton et al, 2012;Dye, 2016Dye, , 2012Schulz Paulsson, 2019).…”

“…Given contemporary concerns over choices of samples for generating radiocarbon dates (Hunt and Lipo, 2006;Wilmshurst et al, 2011;Allen and Huebert, 2014;Rieth and Athens, 2013;Spriggs and Anderson, 1993;cf. Schmid et al, 2018), the now well-understood uncertainties with visual interpretations of dates, and a multitude of issues with simple visual inspection of SPD curves (Bayliss et al, 2007;Contreras and Meadows, 2014;Crema et al, 2016;Dye, 2016;Timpson et al, 2014), these chronologies for initial ahu construction are in need of re-evaluation. Previous syntheses of 14 C data from ahu have also not included the rigorous dating program by Wozniak (2003) at ahu Te Niu.…”

“…Furthermore, the timing of the cessation of platform ahu construction is poorly understood, given the lack of formal modeling and sporadic and limited historical accounts from the 18th century. Bayesian chronological modeling provides a promising alternative for examining the chronology of ahu on Rapa Nui given the island's short chronology and highly overlapping radiocarbon probability distributions, as well as the approach's explicit aim of incorporating prior information about relative construction components from the dated sequences and ability to formally model the timing of events that are otherwise not directly dated (Dye, 2016(Dye, , 2012Schulz Paulsson, 2019).…”

“…Here, using the hypothesized 'collapse' of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) monument construction as a case study, we present an alternative approach that makes use of Bayesian model-based testing of hypotheses for collapse that considers the onset, tempo, and cessation of archaeological events. Our Bayesian approach combines radiocarbon determinations, relative chronological information from architectural stratigraphy, and ethnohistoric accounts with the recently developed 'tempo plot' technique (Dye, 2016) to provide rigorous, model-based estimates for when monument construction begins, the rate of change in monument construction events, and the most likely timing for the cessation of these activities.…”

tabula: An R Package for Analysis, Seriation, and Visualization of Archaeological Count Data

“…Resulting models can be checked for stability and refined with resampling methods (refine_*). Estimated dates can then be displayed as a tempo or activity plot (Dye, 2016) to assess rhythms over long periods. Beyond these, tabula provides several tests (test_*) and measures of diversity within and between archaeological assemblages (index_*): heterogeneity and evenness (Brillouin, Shannon, Simpson, etc.…”