Robust Identification of Changepoints in Population Size via Radiocarbon Dating

Start date: 1 July 2023
End date: 15 March 2024
Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Value: £98,809
Partners and collaborators: Prof E Bard (College de France)
Primary investigator: Professor Timothy J Heaton
Co-investigators: Dr S Al-assam (Named Researcher)
External co-investigators: Prof E Bard (College de France)

We will develop, and test, novel statistical tools that will transform the ability of environmental, and archaeological, scientists to accurately identify changepoints in the past size of populations from samples dated via radiocarbon. Current approaches to identify changepoints in the density of radiocarbon dates fail to rigorously incorporate the required calibration. This limits the reliability of the inferences. We will develop an innovative, and generalisable, statistical methodology to overcome this challenge and provide user-friendly code to encourage uptake by the relevant scientific community.