Holocene Radiocarbon-Dated Sites in Northeastern Siberia: Issues of Temporal Frequency, Reservoir Age, and Human-Nature Interaction

Abstract

The existing corpus of data on radiocarbon dates for Holocene sites in Northeastern Siberia was used as proxy to reconstruct the chronology of human occupation of the region. The problem of reservoir age correction in the Bering Sea region complicated this task and this issue needs to be solved in order to obtain more reliable age determinations for coastal archaeological sites. Using a chronology built after excluding the questionable dates from the database, the major patterns of human population dynamics and their possible correlation with climatic fluctuations were examined. No direct relationship appears to exist between these two processes. Additional archaeological and paleo environmental work needs to be carried out in this region of the North.