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AMS Dating of the Late Copper Age Varna Cemetery, Bulgaria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2018

Thomas Higham ,
Vladimir Slavchev ,
Bisserka Gaydarska  and
John Chapman
Thomas Higham*
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom
Vladimir Slavchev
Affiliation:
Varna Museum, Varna, Bulgaria
Bisserka Gaydarska
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, Durham, United Kingdom
John Chapman
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, Durham, United Kingdom
*
*Corresponding author. Email: thomas.higham@rlaha.ox.ac.uk.
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Abstract

The Varna I cemetery, on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, is one of the most remarkable sites in European prehistory, with the world’s earliest large-scale assemblage of gold artifacts. Modeling of the first series of 14 accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates yielded a duration of occupation at the site of ca. 150 years, ~4600–4450 cal BC. However, there were insufficient paired human–animal dates for a full consideration of the question of the marine reservoir effect. Here, a fuller set of 71 dates from 53 graves is presented. We identify a small reservoir effect in a number of individuals based on 14C, as well as carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. We test the effect of this by building a series of different Bayesian models. Our favored model, including a correction for some of the human determinations, shows activity at the cemetery starting at 4596–4516 cal BC and ending 4427–4341 cal BC (at 95.4% probability). The overall span of activity covers ~120–260 years (93.6% prob.). The modeling shows that Varna I falls toward the beginning of the Bulgarian Late Copper Age.

Keywords

AMS datingBulgariaCopper Agemarine reservoir effectVarna cemetery
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 493 - 516
Copyright
© 2018 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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