The municipal archives of the City of New York

Ith some 100,000 cubic feet of civic documents, vital and building records, libers, films and photographs, New York City's Municipal Archives is a magnet for researchers. Among those who benefit from centralized access to the wealth of material deposited in the Archives by city government agencies are genealogists, urban scholars and architectural historians

The Mississippian fin de siècle in the middle Cumberland region of Tennessee

Bayesian chronological modeling is used to investigate the chronology for a large-scale human depopulation event during the Mississippian period (AD 1000–1600) known as the Vacant Quarter phenomenon. The Middle Cumberland region (MCR) of Tennessee is within the Vacant Quarter area, and six villages from the final phase of Mississippian activity in the MCR have been subjected to radiocarbon dating. Complete radiocarbon datasets from these sites are presented within an interpretative Bayesian statistical framework. The results provide a unique history of each settlement and demonstrate that Mississippian occupations at each site likely terminated in the mid- to late fifteenth and possibly early sixteenth centuries AD, which is 50 to 100 years later than the most recent estimate for the timing of the Vacant Quarter. Mississippian abandonment in the MCR was relatively quick, likely occurring over less than a century. The exact reasons for abandonment are not entirely clear but appear to be linked to climate change. A radiocarbon simulation experiment indicates that future robust radiocarbon dating with well-selected samples could greatly improve the chronological precision for this late Mississippian activity. More broadly, this example demonstrates that model building with radiocarbon simulations can be used to address regional-scale chronological issues within the American Southeast and beyond

A Project Based Approach to Statistics and Data Science

In an increasingly data-driven world, facility with statistics is more important than ever for our students. At institutions without a statistician, it often falls to the mathematics faculty to teach statistics courses. This paper presents a model that a mathematician asked to teach statistics can follow. This model entails connecting with faculty from numerous departments on campus to develop a list of topics, building a repository of real-world datasets from these faculty, and creating projects where students interface with these datasets to write lab reports aimed at consumers of statistics in other disciplines. The end result is students who are well prepared for interdisciplinary research, who are accustomed to coping with the idiosyncrasies of real data, and who have sharpened their technical writing and speaking skills

\u3cem\u3eRethinking Individuals and Agents in Archaeology\u3c/em\u3e, by A.B. Knapp and P. van Dommelen

A comment on Rethinking Individuals and Agents in Archaeology, by A.B. Knapp and P. van Dommelen

The municipal archives of the City of New York

Ith some 100,000 cubic feet of civic documents, vital and building records, libers, films and photographs, New York City's Municipal Archives is a magnet for researchers. Among those who benefit from centralized access to the wealth of material deposited in the Archives by city government agencies are genealogists, urban scholars and architectural historians