Radiocarbon Dating and Its Applications in Quaternary Studies
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Forensic Radiocarbon Dating of Human Remains: the Past, the Present, and the Future
AEFS 1.1 (2017) 3–16 Archaeological and Environmental Forensic Science ISSN (print) 2052-3378 https://doi.org.10.1558/aefs.30715 Archaeological and Environmental Forensic Science ISSN (online) 2052-3386 Forensic Radiocarbon Dating of Human Remains: The Past, the Present, and the Future Fiona Brock1 and Gordon T. Cook2 1. Cranfield Forensic Institute, Cranfield University 2. Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre [email protected] Radiocarbon dating is a valuable tool for the forensic examination of human remains in answering questions as to whether the remains are of forensic or medico-legal interest or archaeological in date. The technique is also potentially capable of providing the year of birth and/or death of an individual. Atmospheric radiocarbon levels are cur- rently enhanced relative to the natural level due to the release of large quantities of radiocarbon (14C) during the atmospheric nuclear weapons testing of the 1950s and 1960s. This spike, or “bomb-pulse,” can, in some instances, provide precision dates to within 1–2 calendar years. However, atmospheric 14C activity has been declining since the end of atmospheric weapons testing in 1963 and is likely to drop below the natural level by the mid-twenty-first century, with implications for the application of radio- carbon dating to forensic specimens. Introduction Radiocarbon dating is most routinely applied to archaeological and environmental studies, but in some instances can be a very powerful tool for forensic specimens. Radiocarbon (14C) is produced naturally in the upper atmosphere by the interaction of cosmic rays on nitrogen-14 (14N). The 14C produced is rapidly oxidised to carbon dioxide, which then either enters the terrestrial biosphere via photosynthesis and proceeds along the food chain via herbivores and omnivores, and subsequently car- nivores, or exchanges into marine reservoirs where it again enters the food chain by photosynthesis. -
Isotopegeochemistry Chapter4
Isotope Geochemistry W. M. White Chapter 4 GEOCHRONOLOGY III: OTHER DATING METHODS 4.1 COSMOGENIC NUCLIDES 4.1.1 Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere As the name implies, cosmogenic nuclides are produced by cosmic rays colliding with atoms in the atmosphere and the surface of the solid Earth. Nuclides so created may be stable or radioactive. Radio- active cosmogenic nuclides, like the U decay series nuclides, have half-lives sufficiently short that they would not exist in the Earth if they were not continually produced. Assuming that the production rate is constant through time, then the abundance of a cosmogenic nuclide in a reservoir isolated from cos- mic ray production is simply given by: −λt N = N0e 4.1 Hence if we know N0 and measure N, we can calculate t. Table 4.1 lists the radioactive cosmogenic nu- clides of principal interest. As we shall, cosmic ray interactions can also produce rare stable nuclides, and their abundance can also be used to measure geologic time. A number of different nuclear reactions create cosmogenic nuclides. “Cosmic rays” are high-energy (several GeV up to 1019 eV!) atomic nuclei, mainly of H and He (because these constitute most of the matter in the universe), but nuclei of all the elements have been recognized. To put these kinds of ener- gies in perspective, the previous gen- eration of accelerators for physics ex- Table 4.1. Data on Cosmogenic Nuclides periments, such as the Cornell Elec- -1 tron Storage Ring produce energies in Nuclide Half-life, years Decay constant, yr the 10’s of GeV (1010 eV); while 14C 5730 1.209x 10-4 CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, 3H 12.33 5.62 x 10-2 mankind’s most powerful accelerator, 10Be 1.500 × 106 4.62 x 10-7 located on the Franco-Swiss border 26Al 7.16 × 105 9.68x 10-5 near Geneva produces energies of 36Cl 3.08 × 105 2.25x 10-6 ~10 TeV range (1013 eV). -
The Impact of Bayesian Chronologies on the British Iron Age
n Hamilton, D., Haselgrove, C., and Gosden, C. (2015) The impact of Bayesian chronologies on the British Iron Age. World Archaeology. Copyright © 2015 The Authors This work is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (CC BY 4.0) Version: Published http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/106441/ Deposited on: 11 June 2015 Enlighten – Research publications by members of the University of Glasgow http://eprints.gla.ac.uk This article was downloaded by: [University of Glasgow] On: 11 June 2015, At: 06:03 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK World Archaeology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwar20 The impact of Bayesian chronologies on the British Iron Age William Derek Hamiltona, Colin Haselgroveb & Chris Gosdenc a University of Glasgow and University of Leicester b University of Leicester c University of Oxford Published online: 09 Jun 2015. Click for updates To cite this article: William Derek Hamilton, Colin Haselgrove & Chris Gosden (2015): The impact of Bayesian chronologies on the British Iron Age, World Archaeology, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2015.1053976 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2015.1053976 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. -
The Intcal20 Northern Hemisphere Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curve (0-55 Cal Kbp)
The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere radiocarbon age calibration curve (0-55 cal kBP) Reimer, P., Austin, W. E. N., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Blackwell, P. G., Bronk Ramsey, C., Butzin, M., Cheng, H., Lawrence Edwards, R., Friedrich, M., Grootes, P. M., Guilderson, T. P., Hajdas, I., Heaton, T. J., Hogg, A. G., Hughen, K. A., Kromer, B., Manning, S. W., Muscheler, R., ... Talamo, S. (2020). The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere radiocarbon age calibration curve (0-55 cal kBP). Radiocarbon, 62(4), 725. https://doi.org/10.1017/RDC.2020.41 Published in: Radiocarbon Document Version: Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights ©2020 The Authors. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. -
346 High-Precision Radiocarbon Dating of The
HIGH-PRECISION RADIOCARBON DATING OF THE CONSTRUCTION PHASE OF OAKBANK CRANNOG, LOCH TAY, PERTHSHIRE G T Cook1,2 • T N Dixon3 • N Russell1 • P Naysmith1 • S Xu1 • B Andrian3 ABSTRACT. Many of the Loch Tay crannogs were built in the Early Iron Age and so calibration of the radiocarbon ages pro- duces very broad calendar age ranges due to the well-documented Hallstatt plateau in the calibration curve. However, the large oak timbers that were used in the construction of some of the crannogs potentially provide a means of improving the pre- cision of the dating through subdividing them into decadal or subdecadal increments, dating them to high precision and wig- gle-matching the resulting data to the master 14C calibration curve. We obtained a sample from 1 oak timber from Oakbank Crannog comprising 70 rings (Sample OB06 WMS 1, T103) including sapwood that was complete to the bark edge. The tim- ber is situated on the northeast edge of the main living area of the crannog and as a large and strong oak pile would have been a useful support in more than 1 phase of occupation and may be related to the earliest construction phase of the site. This was sectioned into 5-yr increments and dated to a precision of approximately ±8–16 14C yr (1 ). The wiggle-match predicts that the last ring dated was formed around 500 BC (maximum range of 520–465 BC) and should be taken as indicative of the likely time of construction of Oakbank Crannog. This is a considerable improvement on the estimates based on single 14C ages made on oak samples, which typically encompassed the period from around 800–400 BC. -
Intcal: Radiocarbon Calibration Curves
Package ‘IntCal’ July 28, 2021 Type Package Title Radiocarbon Calibration Curves Version 0.2.2 Date 2021-07-28 Description The IntCal20 radiocarbon calibra- tion curves (Reimer et al. 2020 <doi:10.1017/RDC.2020.68>) are provided here in a sin- gle data package, together with previous IntCal curves (IntCal13, IntCal09, IntCal04, Int- Cal98) and postbomb curves. Also provided are functions to copy the curves into mem- ory, and to plot the curves and their underlying data, as well as functions to calibrate radiocar- bon dates. License GPL (>= 2) RoxygenNote 7.1.1 Suggests knitr, rmarkdown, utf8 VignetteBuilder knitr Encoding UTF-8 NeedsCompilation no Language en-GB Author Maarten Blaauw [aut, cre] Maintainer Maarten Blaauw <[email protected]> Repository CRAN Date/Publication 2021-07-28 10:50:07 UTC R topics documented: age.pMC . .2 calBP.14C . .3 caldist . .3 calibrate . .4 ccurve . .8 copyCalibrationCurve . 10 draw.ccurve . 10 1 2 age.pMC draw.dates . 12 glue.ccurves . 14 hpd ............................................. 15 IntCal . 15 intcal.data . 16 list.ccurves . 23 mix.ccurves . 23 pMC.age . 25 Index 26 age.pMC Calculate pMC values from C14 ages Description Calculate pMC values from radiocarbon ages Usage age.pMC(mn, sdev, ratio = 100, decimals = 3) Arguments mn Reported mean of the 14C age. sdev Reported error of the 14C age. ratio Most modern-date values are reported against 100. If it is against 1 instead, use 1 here. decimals Amount of decimals required for the pMC value. Details Post-bomb dates are often reported as pMC or percent modern carbon. Since Bacon expects radio- carbon ages, this function can be used to calculate pMC values from radiocarbon ages. -
Dating Techniques.Pdf
Dating Techniques Dating techniques in the Quaternary time range fall into three broad categories: • Methods that provide age estimates. • Methods that establish age-equivalence. • Relative age methods. 1 Dating Techniques Age Estimates: Radiometric dating techniques Are methods based in the radioactive properties of certain unstable chemical elements, from which atomic particles are emitted in order to achieve a more stable atomic form. 2 Dating Techniques Age Estimates: Radiometric dating techniques Application of the principle of radioactivity to geological dating requires that certain fundamental conditions be met. If an event is associated with the incorporation of a radioactive nuclide, then providing: (a) that none of the daughter nuclides are present in the initial stages and, (b) that none of the daughter nuclides are added to or lost from the materials to be dated, then the estimates of the age of that event can be obtained if the ration between parent and daughter nuclides can be established, and if the decay rate is known. 3 Dating Techniques Age Estimates: Radiometric dating techniques - Uranium-series dating 238Uranium, 235Uranium and 232Thorium all decay to stable lead isotopes through complex decay series of intermediate nuclides with widely differing half- lives. 4 Dating Techniques Age Estimates: Radiometric dating techniques - Uranium-series dating • Bone • Speleothems • Lacustrine deposits • Peat • Coral 5 Dating Techniques Age Estimates: Radiometric dating techniques - Thermoluminescence (TL) Electrons can be freed by heating and emit a characteristic emission of light which is proportional to the number of electrons trapped within the crystal lattice. Termed thermoluminescence. 6 Dating Techniques Age Estimates: Radiometric dating techniques - Thermoluminescence (TL) Applications: • archeological sample, especially pottery. -
High-Precision Bayesian Chronological Modeling On
Radiocarbon, Vol 62, Nr 5, 2020, p 1261–1284 DOI:10.1017/RDC.2020.76 © 2020 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. HIGH-PRECISION BAYESIAN CHRONOLOGICAL MODELING ON A CALIBRATION PLATEAU: THE NIEDERTIEFENBACH GALLERY GRAVE John Meadows1,2* • Christoph Rinne3 • Alexander Immel4 • Katharina Fuchs4 • Ben Krause-Kyora4 • Clara Drummer3 1Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA), Schloss Gottorf, 24837 Schleswig, Germany 2Leibniz-Laboratory for AMS Dating and Stable Isotope Research, Christian-Albrechts-University, Max-Eyth-Str. 11-13, 24118 Kiel, Germany 3Institute of Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology, Christian-Albrechts-University, Johanna-Mestorf-Straße 2-6, 24118 Kiel, Germany 4Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology, Christian-Albrechts-University, Rosalind-Franklin-Straße 12, 24105 Kiel, Germany ABSTRACT. We combine the results of a radiocarbon (14C) dating program with archaeogenetic, osteological and sparse stratigraphic data, to construct a Bayesian chronological model for a multi-generational sequence situated entirely on a plateau in the 14C calibration curve. Calibrated dates of individual human bones from the Late Neolithic gallery grave at Niedertiefenbach, Hesse, Germany, span the entire calibration plateau in the late 4th millennium (ca. 3350–3100/3000 cal BC), but our model restricts the overall period of burial to 3–6 generations centered on the later 3200s, and provides narrower absolute date ranges for specific individuals and associated events. -
Aspartic Acid Racemization and Radiocarbon Dating of an Early Milling Stone Horizon Burial in California Darcy Ike; Jeffrey L. B
Aspartic Acid Racemization and Radiocarbon Dating of an Early Milling Stone Horizon Burial in California Darcy Ike; Jeffrey L. Bada; Patricia M. Masters; Gail Kennedy; John C. Vogel American Antiquity, Vol. 44, No. 3. (Jul., 1979), pp. 524-530. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-7316%28197907%2944%3A3%3C524%3AAARARD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6 American Antiquity is currently published by Society for American Archaeology. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/journals/sam.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. -
A Chronology for Late Prehistoric Madagascar
Journal of Human Evolution 47 (2004) 25e63 www.elsevier.com/locate/jhevol A chronology for late prehistoric Madagascar a,) a,b c David A. Burney , Lida Pigott Burney , Laurie R. Godfrey , William L. Jungersd, Steven M. Goodmane, Henry T. Wrightf, A.J. Timothy Jullg aDepartment of Biological Sciences, Fordham University, Bronx NY 10458, USA bLouis Calder Center Biological Field Station, Fordham University, P.O. Box 887, Armonk NY 10504, USA cDepartment of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Amherst MA 01003, USA dDepartment of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook NY 11794, USA eField Museum of Natural History, 1400 S. Roosevelt Rd., Chicago, IL 60605, USA fMuseum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA gNSF Arizona AMS Facility, University of Arizona, Tucson AZ 85721, USA Received 12 December 2003; accepted 24 May 2004 Abstract A database has been assembled with 278 age determinations for Madagascar. Materials 14C dated include pretreated sediments and plant macrofossils from cores and excavations throughout the island, and bones, teeth, or eggshells of most of the extinct megafaunal taxa, including the giant lemurs, hippopotami, and ratites. Additional measurements come from uranium-series dates on speleothems and thermoluminescence dating of pottery. Changes documented include late Pleistocene climatic events and, in the late Holocene, the apparently human- caused transformation of the environment. Multiple lines of evidence point to the earliest human presence at ca. 2300 14C yr BP (350 cal yr BC). A decline in megafauna, inferred from a drastic decrease in spores of the coprophilous fungus Sporormiella spp. in sediments at 1720 G 40 14C yr BP (230e410 cal yr AD), is followed by large increases in charcoal particles in sediment cores, beginning in the SW part of the island, and spreading to other coasts and the interior over the next millennium. -
New Glacier Evidence for Ice-Free Summits During the Life of The
www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN New glacier evidence for ice‑free summits during the life of the Tyrolean Iceman Pascal Bohleber1,2*, Margit Schwikowski3,4,5, Martin Stocker‑Waldhuber1, Ling Fang3,5 & Andrea Fischer1 Detailed knowledge of Holocene climate and glaciers dynamics is essential for sustainable development in warming mountain regions. Yet information about Holocene glacier coverage in the Alps before the Little Ice Age stems mostly from studying advances of glacier tongues at lower elevations. Here we present a new approach to reconstructing past glacier low stands and ice‑ free conditions by assessing and dating the oldest ice preserved at high elevations. A previously unexplored ice dome at Weißseespitze summit (3500 m), near where the “Tyrolean Iceman” was found, ofers almost ideal conditions for preserving the original ice formed at the site. The glaciological settings and state‑of‑the‑art micro‑radiocarbon age constraints indicate that the summit has been glaciated for about 5900 years. In combination with known maximum ages of other high Alpine glaciers, we present evidence for an elevation gradient of neoglaciation onset. It reveals that in the Alps only the highest elevation sites remained ice‑covered throughout the Holocene. Just before the life of the Iceman, high Alpine summits were emerging from nearly ice‑free conditions, during the start of a Mid‑Holocene neoglaciation. We demonstrate that, under specifc circumstances, the old ice at the base of high Alpine glaciers is a sensitive archive of glacier change. However, under current melt rates the archive at Weißseespitze and at similar locations will be lost within the next two decades. -
Riverside, California
[Radiocarbon, Vol 25, No. 2, 1983, P 647-654] NON-CONCORDANCE OF RADIOCARBON AND AMINO ACID RACEMIZATION DEDUCED AGE ESTIMATES ON HUMAN BONE R E TAYLOR Department of Anthropology Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics University of California, Riverside Riverside, California ABSTRACT. Radiocarbon determinations, employing both decay and direct counting, were obtained on various organic frac- tions of four human skeletal samples previously assigned ages ranging from 28,000 to 70,000 years on the basis of their D/L aspartic acid racemization values. In all four cases, the 14C values require an order of magnitude reduction in age. INTRODUCTION Some of the earliest 14C measurements carried out in 1948- 1949 were concerned with the question of the antiquity of Homo sapiens in the Western Hemisphere (Arnold and Libby, 1950). 14C By the mid-1960's, values were being used to establish the presence of human populationsions in the New World at a maximum of ca 12,000 to 13,000 4C years BP (Haynes, 1967). In the 14C early 1970's, values on the "collagen" (typically, the acid-insoluble) fraction of human bone samples (cf Hassan and Hare, 1978; Taylor, 1980) were used to adjust the upper limit upward to ca 20,000 to 25,000 14C years (Berger et al, 1971; Berger, 1975). By the mid 1970's, amino-acid racemization (Bada and Protsch, 1973) and its application to bone samples from anatomically modern Homo sapiens from central and south- ern California (Bada and Helfman, 1915) provided aspartic acid derived age assignments up to as much as 70,000 years (Sunnyvale skeleton).