A comment on Steele’s (2010) “radiocarbon dates as data: quantitative strategies for estimating colonization front speeds and event densities”

We show that Steele’s (2010) criticisms of Hamilton and Buchanan (2007) and Buchanan et al. (2008) do not hold water and demonstrate that his re-analyses of Hamilton and Buchanan’s (2007) and Buchanan et al'.s (2008) datasets are flawed. In the process, we highlight some important issues for researchers interested in using radiocarbon dates to reconstruct population movements and demography. Most notably, we explain why OLS regression is preferable to RMA regression when estimating diffusion velocity, and demonstrate that the summed probability distributions yielded by CalPal are more reliable as guides to past demographic change than those produced by Calib and OxCal.

► A response to Steele’s (2010) “Radiocarbon dates as data: quantitative strategies for estimating colonization front speeds and event densities”. ► We show that his criticisms of Hamilton and Buchanan (2007) and Buchanan et al. (2008) do not hold water. ► We also demonstrate that his re-analyses of Hamilton and Buchanan’s (2007) and Buchanan et al.’s (2008) datasets are flawed.