The role of radiocarbon dating in advancing Indigenous-led archaeological research agendas

Abstract

Meaningful collaborations between archaeologists and descendant communities and nations is a necessary component of archaeological practice in the 2020s and beyond. While calls for decolonising the social sciences and humanities have become a common refrain, practical methodologies for supplanting settler-colonial research practice have been less apparent. We detail how the development of independent radiocarbon-based chronologies in archaeology is one such substantive path forward. As a joint group of Indigenous and Euro-American and Euro-Canadian researchers, we outline how collaborative research agendas that privilege the knowledge and interests of descendant communities and include independent chronology building can be developed and achieved, securing mutual benefit and distributing authority in the construction of archaeologically derived Indigenous histories.