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Radiocarbon Dates 1993-1998 RADIOCARBONDATES RADIOCARBONDATES RADIOCARBON DATES This volume holds a datelist of 1063 radiocarbon determinations carried out between 1993 and 1998 on behalf of the Ancient Monuments Laboratory of English Heritage. It contains supporting information about the samples and the sites producing them, a comprehensive bibliography, and two indexes for reference from samples funded by English Heritage and analysis. An introduction provides discussion of the character and taphonomy between 1993 and 1998 of the dated samples and information about the methods used for the analyses reported and their calibration. The datelist has been collated from information provided by the submitters of the samples and the dating laboratories. Many of the sites and projects from which dates have been obtained are now published, although developments in statistical methodologies for the interpretation of radiocarbon dates since these measurements were made may allow revised chronological models to be constructed on the basis of these dates. The purpose of this volume is to provide easy access to the raw scientific and contextual data which may be used in further research. Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Gordon Cook, Gerry McCormac, and Peter Marshall Front cover:Wharram Percy cemetery excavations. (©Wharram Research Project) Back cover:The Scientific Dating Research Team visiting Stonehenge as part of Science, Engineering, and Technology Week,March 1996. Left to right: Stephen Hoper (The Queen’s University, Belfast), Christopher Bronk Ramsey (Oxford University), Gerry McCormac (The Queen’s University, Belfast), Alex Bayliss (English Heritage), Michael J Allen and Julie Gardiner (Wessex Archaeology). (© The Queen’s University, Belfast) Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Gordon Cook, ISBN 978­1­84802­361­1 Gerry McCormac, and Peter Marshall RADIOCARBON DATES from samples funded by English Heritage between 1993 and 1998 RADIOCARBON DATES from samples funded by English Heritage between 1993 and 1998 Alex Bayliss, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Gordon Cook, Gerry McCormac, and Peter Marshall Published by Historic England, The Engine House, Fire Fly Avenue, Swindon SN2 2EH www.HistoricEngland.org.uk Historic England is a Government service championing England’s heritage and giving expert, constructive advice, and the English Heritage Trust is a charity caring for the National Heritage Collection of more than 400 historic properties and their collections. © Historic England 2015 Images (except as otherwise shown) © Historic England, © Crown Copyright. HE, or Reproduced by permission of Historic England First published 2015 ISBN 978­1­84802­361­1 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Application for the reproduction of images should be made to Historic England. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders and we apologise in advance for any unintentional omissions, which we would be pleased to correct in any subsequent edition of this book. For more information about images from the Archive, contact Archives Services Team, Historic England, The Engine House, Fire Fly Avenue, Swindon SN2 2EH; telephone (01793) 414600. Brought to publication by Kate Cullen, Betty Publishing, for Historic England. Cover design and page layout by Mark Simmons Indexed by Alan Rutter Printed by 4Edge Ltd, Hockley. www.4edge.co.uk Contents Radiocarbon Dates funded by English Heritage between 1993 and 1998 by Alex Bayliss . vii Introduction . vii Sampling strategies . ix Sample selection and characterisation . x Laboratory methods . xiii Fractionation and radiocarbon ages . xvi Calibration . xvi Quality assurance . xvii Weighted means of replicate results. xxiii Statistical modelling . xxiii Using the datelist . xxvi Acknowledgements . xxvi Datelist . 1 Bibliography . 269 Index of laboratory codes . 281 General index. 288 v vi Radiocarbon Dates funded by English Heritage between 1993 and 1998 Introduction This volume presents a detailed catalogue of the radiocarbon dates funded by English Heritage between April 1993 and March 19981 . In total, details of 1063 determinations are provided. Only samples from sites in which English Heritage had a formal interest were eligible for dating through the Ancient Monuments Laboratory. Often samples came from archaeological excavations funded, wholly or in part, by English Heritage. Some samples were from sites excavated by the in-house archaeological team or on sites in guardianship, but many were from projects undertaken by others with funding from the English Heritage Archaeology Commissions Programme. Some excavations, such as the large-scale work at Yarnton, Oxfordshire, were undertaken in advance of development or mineral extraction where permission had been granted before funding from developers became widely available, following the adoption of new planning guidance in the early 1990s (PPG16 1990). Many samples were also submitted from the large-scale archaeological surveys of wetlands – in the Humber, the counties of the North-West, and in the East Anglian Fens – which were undertaken at this time. Others came from threatened sites or unexpected discoveries on the foreshore. A major focus of research during these years, however, was the post-excavation analysis of sites that had been excavated with funding from English Heritage and its predecessors before the implementation of PPG16 (1990). This volume covers the period when a number of large-scale post- excavation programmes were underway. These covered all periods of English archaeology, from important evidence for Fig 1. Excavation at Castle Mall, Norwich (© NPS Archaeology) hunter-gatherers in the late glacial and early Holocene at Three Ways Wharf, Uxbridge, Middlesex (Lewis with Rackham 2011), to long-running research into the early all the consequences of chronological modelling for the types Neolithic monument complex on Hambledon Hill, Dorset of archaeological materials that should be submitted for (Mercer and Healy 2008), to large-scale Saxon and medieval dating had still to be elicited through experience. evidence that had been recovered by excavations that had But Bayesian statistical modelling was now routine been undertaken in advance of the development of Castle practice on projects funded by English Heritage: all sites that Mall, Norwich, Norfolk (Fig 1; Shepherd Popescu 2009a). merited the approach were sampled and dated with a Bayesian This volume covers a period of transition in the use of framework. Chronological models were not grafted on to radiocarbon dating in archaeology. Although the first papers suites of existing radiocarbon dates, rather the archaeological introducing a Bayesian approach to the interpretation of problem was addressed from a Bayesian perspective from the radiocarbon dates had already appeared (Naylor and Smith outset. At this time about two-thirds of projects funded by 1988; Buck et al 1991; 1992), the technique could only be English Heritage had radiocarbon dating programmes that applied on a routine basis once software was available for its were designed within a Bayesian framework, although its implementation. The release of the first version of OxCal in implementation was uneven with around 85% of samples August 1993 (Bronk Ramsey 1994; 1995) thus changed from excavations being selected in this way, but only 10% of everything. samples from archaeological surveys (Bayliss and Bronk This is not to say that the Bayesian process as it has since Ramsey 2004, fig 1). developed (Bayliss and Bronk 2004; Bayliss 2009) sprung into The impact on the precision of dating that could be being fully formed. The need to employ statistical provided for archaeological sites was immediately apparent, distributions to counteract the scatter on a group of nowhere more visibly than at Stonehenge, Wiltshire (Fig 2), radiocarbon dates was not always fully appreciated at this time where radiocarbon dating and chronological modelling was (Bayliss 1995; Bayliss et al 1996; Steier and Rom 2000; Bronk undertaken as part of a landmark programme of post- Ramsey 2000). Methods of statistical simulation to aid sample excavation and analysis which led to the publication of the selection were primitive (Bayliss and Orton 1994), and above twentieth-century excavations (Cleal et al 1995). vii Introduction Between 1993 and 1998 English Heritage maintained Between 1993 and 1998, the proportion of radiocarbon collaborative research arrangements with three radiocarbon measurements that were measured by AMS increased to dating facilities (Fig 3). Conventional radiocarbon dating was almost half (Fig 4). Not only had AMS dating become more provided by the laboratory at the Scottish Universities widely available as new facilities were established around the Research and Reactor Centre (SURRC) using liquid world, but the precision of measurements made by AMS had scintillation counting (LSC), with high-precision improved. The median quoted error on AMS determinations measurements, also undertaken using liquid scintillation reported in this volume, for example, is ±50 BP. This is the spectrometry, provided by the laboratory of the Queen’s same as the median error term quoted on conventional University, Belfast.
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