Absolute Chronology for Early Civilisations in Austria and Central Europe Using 14C Dating with Accelerator Mass Spectrometry1
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Status of the Austrian Science Fund Project P12253-PHY: Absolute Chronology for Early Civilisations in Austria and Central Europe using 14C Dating with Accelerator Mass Spectrometry1 2 3 4 3 Peter STADLER , Susanne DRAXLER , Herwig FRIESINGER , Walter KUTSCHERA , 3 3 3 3 Alfred PRILLER , Werner ROM , Peter STEIER , Eva M. WILD 1 Parts of this report are in the publishing process. Citations to these publications will be given at the corresponding sections. 2 Prähistorische Abteilung, Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, and Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, University of Vienna. 3 Institut für Isotopenforschung und Kernphysik, University of Vienna. 4 Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, University of Vienna. Table of Contents Summary__________________________________________________________________ 3 Sample collection ___________________________________________________________ 5 Development for the 14C Measurements at VERA _________________________________ 5 Report of the Collagen Extraction Unit (Susanne DRAXLER) __________________________ 6 Aim_______________________________________________________________________________ 6 Construction ________________________________________________________________________ 6 Process ____________________________________________________________________________ 6 Tests ______________________________________________________________________________ 7 Conclusion _________________________________________________________________________ 8 The Micromass OPTIMA® Stable-Isotope Mass Spectrometer (Eva M. WILD, Walter KUTSCHERA, Vienna) ___________________________________________________________ 9 Introduction ________________________________________________________________________ 9 Purchase ___________________________________________________________________________ 9 Installation and Acceptance ____________________________________________________________ 9 First measurements __________________________________________________________________ 10 Outlook___________________________________________________________________________ 12 14C Data Base _____________________________________________________________ 13 The samples ______________________________________________________________ 13 Results___________________________________________________________________ 14 th Linear Ceramics (6 millennium BC) from different sites ____________________________ 16 Brunn am Gebirge/Wolfholz, District Mödling, Lower Austria (Peter STADLER, Vienna) ___________ 16 Szentgyörgyvölgy, District Zala, Western Hungary (Eszter BÁNNFY, Budapest) __________________ 18 Rosenburg, District Horn, Lower Austria (Eva LENNEIS, Vienna)______________________________ 19 Mold, District Horn, Lower Austria (Eva LENNEIS, Vienna) __________________________________ 19 Bylany, District Kutná Hora, Bohemia, Czech Republic (Ivan PAVLù, Prague) __________________ 19 th Lengyel-Painted Ceramics (5 millennium BC) ____________________________________ 20 Michelstetten, District Mistelbach, Lower Austria, Phase II of Lengyel (Ângela CARNEIRO, Vienna) __ 20 Ground plan of a house from Epi-Lengyel from Münchendorf, District Mödling, Lower Austria (Peter STADLER, Vienna)___________________________________________________________________ 21 th The Baden Culture (4 millennium BC) __________________________________________ 22 Boleráz and Classical Baden (Elisabeth RUTTKAY, Peter STADLER, Vienna) _____________________ 22 Boleráz of Arbon Bleiche 3, Bodensee, Switzerland (Peter STADLER, Vienna, Urs LEUZINGER, Trifun SORMAZ, Zürich) ___________________________________________________________________ 23 The Iceman (Ötzi), a possibility of dating his death more exactly (Peter STADLER, Vienna) 25 Early Middle Ages ____________________________________________________________ 28 Avar Period Settlement (7th century AD) from Brunn, Wolfholz II, District Mödling, Lower Austria (Peter STADLER, Vienna) _____________________________________________________________ 28 Calibrating the relative chronology in the Avar Age (6th to 9th century) to an absolute chronology (Peter STADLER, Vienna)___________________________________________________________________ 29 Avar and Magyar settlement from Örménykút, County Békés, Eastern Hungary (Hajnalka HEROLD)__ 30 The fortification of Thunau/Kamp, MG. Gars, Lower Austria, (10th/9th century BC and 8th/9th century AD) (Herwig FRIESINGER, Vienna) ____________________________________________________ 31 Conclusion and Outlook ____________________________________________________ 34 2 Summary „Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.“ WINSTON CHURCHILL This project is an interdisciplinary initiative of archaeologists and nuclear physi- cists to substantially improve the absolute chronology of archaeologically inter- esting cultures in Austria and Central Europe by using 14C dating with Accelera- tor Mass Spectrometry (AMS). An improved absolute chronology based on pre- cise 14C dating would lead to a better understanding of the interactions between early cultures and would help to deepen our insight into the rich diversity of pre- historic life in Austria and adjacent countries. The 14C dating is performed at the Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA), a new centre for AMS at the Institute for Isotopenforschung und Kernphysik5 of the University of Vienna, which came into operation in 1996. In the first two years of the project, 1555 samples from Austria and adjacent countries, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia were col- lected. Besides collecting and analysing samples from a variety of well- documented sites, emphasis will be put on a detailed analysis of the Early Bronze Age Cemetery from Franzhausen I in Lower Austria (2200 BC to 1500 BC)6, and on the Early and Middle Avar Period (568 AD to ~700 AD)7. All in- formation about the samples was fed into a data base. In addition a database of radiocarbon dates was built up from literature. So far we have made high precision radiocarbon determinations for about 270 samples, which shall be discussed here. Additional activities were the set-up of a new semi-automatic collagen extraction and the preparation of an eight-fold graphitisation and first tests running our new stable isotope mass spectrometer. We obtained new results for the Linear Ceramics Culture: The chronological position of Brunn am Gebirge/Wolfholz, which is very important for the genesis of this culture. Also results from Szentgyörgyvölgy, Rosenburg, Mold and By- lany are discussed. From Lengyel Culture phase II could be separated for the first time from phase I also using our radiocarbon dates. A house plan of un- known age can be dated to the Epi-Lengyel. 5 The former Institut für Radiumforschung und Kernphysik. 6 116 samples were collected. 7 Here 190 samples could be collected. 3 For the Baden Culture two groups can be differentiated archaeologically, Baden- Boleráz and Baden-Classical, which were confirmed by radiocarbon dates. Ba- den-Boleráz begins much earlier than expected, at about 3640 and lasts until 3370 BC. Baden-Classical goes from 3360 to 2930 BC. The site from Arbon Bleiche 3, which contains material of late Boleráz together with that from late Pfyn and early Horgen, fits very well in between the two Baden phases. The ideas of an Eastern genesis of the Baden Culture must be cross-checked by dat- ing new samples of the Eastern parallel cultures, because the current dates would not support spreading of these cultures from the East to the West. On the con- trary – at the moment – it seems possible that Baden Culture (Boleráz) devel- oped somewhere in Lower Austria, Moravia, Slovakia or Western Hungary and then spread to the East. For the late Neolithic Iceman “Ötzi” a hypothesis for narrowing down the time of his death is presented by connecting his death with a global event in the year 3200 BC. By simulating a “wiggle matching” procedure, it is shown, that if the Iceman’s bow contained more than 60 year rings and would be available, this hypothesis could be verified. Wiggle matching is also our main interest in connection with two archaeological contexts from Early Middle Ages. In the first case wood remains from a well of the Avar Period (7th century) and in the second case charcoals from a fortifica- tion were dated by dendrochronology. The calibration curve for 8th and 9th cen- tury gives ambiguous results for the standard calibration procedure. However radiocarbon dates confirmed the results from dendrochronology by narrowing down the time span by wiggle matching. For the absolute chronology of Avar grave-complexes a method is proposed, which could use wiggle matching also for sequence dates obtained by seriation. We hope to finish at least 1000 samples in the third year, beginning in April 2000, by increasing man power in the sample preparation substantially. 4 Sample collection In June 1999 we stopped the further reception of samples, because we had al- ready obtained 1555 samples, 555 more than in our original project proposal. All the sample sheets received by the different sample suppliers were fed into a da- tabase. 74 fields of information were entered, concerning general information, laboratory data, sample parameters, scientific investigations by archaeobotany, zoology and human biology. Some of the parameters are used for possible cor- rection of the calibrated radiocarbon age, such as dendrochronology for wiggle- matching or the age of a skeleton to estimate the offset given to the radiocarbon