In 2021, a series of radiocarbon dates for St. George’s Rotunda in Nitrianska Blatnica (Slovakia) was published. The samples were acquired during restoration work. Based on the analysis, the authors dated the rotunda to the period of around AD 820–887, with 86% of the probability distribution lying in the period before AD 863. The chronology is based on the combined radiocarbon date 1191 ± 10 BP, which was obtained from four samples of wood fragments found in the oldest mortar layer. However, the date proposed by the authors raises concerns. The conclusions were based on a selection of samples and modeling of radiocarbon dates but put less emphasis on the results of many years of broad archaeological research on the local settlement agglomeration as well as extant historical and archaeological knowledge. The present re-analysis of the early medieval mortar and plaster samples and simple modeling corroborates the alternative hypothesis, providing us with the date 1115 ± 13 BP (cal AD 892–988 2σ). The resulting probability range is consistent with current archaeological and historical knowledge. Consequently, contrary to former conclusions, the construction of the rotunda should be dated to the period between the end of the 9th century and the end of the 10th century.

Horizontal watermills in the southern Levant have proved difficult to date. This study investigates the use of radiocarbon (14C) dating of various organic carbon fractions in structural mortars and carbonate deposits to identify terminus post quem (TPQ) construction dates for seven arubah watermills and two chute watermills in northern Jordan. Dating results from the various organic fractions are discussed in the contexts of carbon fraction integrity and mortar type. The arubah watermill construction dates fall into two chronological groups. Four arubah watermills have Middle Islamic (late 12th to early 14th century AD) construction dates based on macrocharcoal and bulk organic fraction ages, whereas the bulk organic fraction ages of two earlier arubah watermills straddle the Byzantine-Early Islamic transition. Their possible fifth to seventh-century construction dates are among the earliest in the southern Levant. Limited 14C data from the chute water mills suggests that the earliest may date to the sixth–seventh century period, concurrent with the older arubah watermills. The study supports the viability of the AMS 14C method to provide estimated TPQ construction dates for watermills, providing caution is exercised. Short-lived macrocharcoals have the highest integrity but are subject to severe sample loss during pretreatment. 14C ages from humic and humin fractions in earthen mortars are influenced by “old carbon” contamination, possibly a soil reservoir effect, and are centuries older than the probable construction date. Attention is drawn to the potential use of arubah carbonate deposits as proxy records of water flow, watermill use, and hydroclimate.

By investigating the materiality of colonial encounters, specifically the consumption of introduced commodities by Indigenous peoples, archaeologists can explore questions concerning value, agency, consumer choice and localization. This has the significant capacity to broaden understandings of intercultural encounters and challenge colonial narratives. Glass beads represent one of the earliest foreign material culture introductions to the Indigenous peoples of Australia. The rock-shelter site of Madjedbebe, best known for yielding the oldest evidence to date for human occupation in Australia, also contains one of the largest assemblages from an Indigenous site context in Australia—51 glass beads and associated fragments. We present here an analysis of these objects—through attribute and microwear analysis—in concert with the archival record, to reveal the ways in which Bininj (Aboriginal people) incorporated glass beads into their own lifeways.

The spread of trapeze industries (the creation of trapeze-shaped flint tips) during Late Mesolithic is one of the most disruptive phenomena of technological change documented in the European Prehistory. Understanding the chronological patterns of this process requires (i) a critical evaluation of stratigraphic relationship between trapeze assemblages and radiocarbon samples, and (ii) considering different levels of chronological uncertainty according to the inbuilt age of the samples and the calibration process. In this paper, we critically evaluate and analyze the radiocarbon record of the first trapeze industries in the Iberian Peninsula. A dataset of 181 radiocarbon dates from 67 sites dated to 8800–8200 cal BP was collected and evaluated following a strict data quality control protocol, from which 135 dates of 53 sites were retained and classified according to a reliability index. Then, three different phase Bayesian chronological models were created to estimate the duration of the first spread of trapezes across Iberia, considering different levels of chrono-stratigraphic resolution. We find that trapeze industries appeared in the eastern half of Iberia, over an area of 330,000 km2 between 8505–8390 and 8425–8338 cal BP, spanning 0–85 yr (95.4% CI). When the oldest evidence of trapezes from Portugal are considered, the probability distribution expands (8943–8457 and 8686–7688 cal BP), due to the chronological uncertainty of human samples with marine diet and regional ΔR values applied. For the eastern half of Iberia, the current evidence indicates a very rapid spread of trapeze industries initiated in the Central-Western Pyrenees, suggesting cultural diffusion within Mesolithic social networks as the main driving mechanism.

Based on the study of the primary documentation related to the excavations carried out by Eurico Miller in the 1970s at Abrigo do Sol, Mato Grosso (Brazil), we propose a new reading of the stratigraphic and chronological information obtained from this rock shelter. Despite the apparent incongruity in the chrono-stratigraphic distribution of published dates, a detailed examination of the stratigraphy and field notes allowed us to identify a chronometric sequence with regular distribution between the Middle Holocene and the Late Pleistocene periods for the Abrigo do Sol site. We present here the original documents related to radiocarbon dating and their analysis. We finally show the implications of this study for understanding this site and the discussions related to the ancient settlements of the Amazon forest.

In the hyperarid eastern Sahara, west of the Nile River in Egypt, areas with vegetated eolian mounds have attracted people and animals because of shallow groundwater that at times of high water tables may be reached by hand digging shallow wells. An eolian phreatophytic mound with a living arak bush (Silvadora persica L.) on top, one of three known from this region of SW Egypt, provided a stratigraphic record of its growth. The geochronology of the mounds aggradation and that of a nearby tarfa mound (Tamarix nilatica Bunge) was determined by radiocarbon dating plant macrofossils within the stratigraphic succession. Eolian aggradation of the mound postdates deflation that eroded playa sediments of the Neolithic pluvial that ended ca. 5000 BP and appears to be due to a resurgence of the shallow aquifer. Subsequent deflation of the mounds is apparently due to post-1500 BP aridity. Regional vegetation is described in the Appendix I.

Five sites in present-day New York have played important roles in archaeological narratives surrounding the development of settled village life in northeastern North America. Excavated in the mid-twentieth century, the Roundtop, Maxon-Derby, Sackett or Canandaigua, Bates, and Kelso sites include evidence related to the transition from semisedentary settlement-subsistence patterns during the twelfth through fourteenth centuries AD to those associated with fifteenth century and later settled Iroquoian villagers. Radiocarbon dates for each site were obtained early in the development of the method and again following the transition to AMS dating. Here, we present new or recently-published dates for these sites, combined with reliable existing dates in Bayesian models, including in some cases short tree-ring sequenced wiggle-matches on wood charcoal. Our results clarify the timing of each site’s occupation(s), revealing both continuity and discontinuity in the development of longhouse dwellings, sedentism, and the repeated re-use of some site locations over hundreds of years.

The research aims to reconstruct the chronology of building the Southwest Church, Umm el-Jimal, Jordan by AMS radiocarbon dating organic inclusions uncovered from the mortars collected from the floor of the church, seat of the apse and the base of the north wall. It sheds light on the major aspects of mortar recipes at the time of their production. Samples were examined macroscopically with magnifying lenses and characterized using archaeometric techniques of optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The radiocarbon dates showed that 594–643 AD is the most probable age for flooring and plastering the church and 995–1154 AD is the earliest possible date for its final collapse. The preparatory layers of the church floor were laid on an older one, probably of a yard, and its north wall was raised on an older base, both most probably date to the late fifth–early sixth century AD. The production recipe of the mortars is made from a lime binder and inclusions mainly of organic (charcoal) and inorganic (quartz, grog, volcanics). The mortars have the same recipe regardless their bedding and jointing functions which remained unchanged during the building stages of church complex.

Precolumbian Maya graffiti is challenging to document because it is complex, multilayered, and difficult to see with the naked eye. In the Maya Lowlands, precolumbian graffiti occurs as etched palimpsests on parts of substructures such as stucco walls of residences, palaces, and temples that are frequently only accessible through dark and narrow tunnel excavations. Experienced iconographers or epigraphers with advanced drawing skills are the most qualified researchers to accurately record, analyze, and interpret precolumbian Maya graffiti. Because these scholars have a vast knowledge of conventions and styles from multiple time periods and sites, they are less likely to document the complex and seemingly chaotic incisions incorrectly. But as with many specialists in Maya archaeology, iconographers and epigraphers are not always available to collaborate in the field. This raises the question, how might an archaeologist without advanced training in iconography accurately record graffiti in subterranean excavations? Advances in digital applications of archaeological field recording have opened new avenues for documenting graffiti. One of these is Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI), a method that uses a moving light source and photography in order to visualize, interact with, and analyze a three-dimensional object in a two-dimensional image. With practice, RTI images can easily be produced in the field and later shared with specialists for the purposes of analysis and interpretation. Performed on a series of 20 unique graffiti from the Maya archaeological site of Holtun (two examples are presented here), RTI shows promise as a viable technique for documenting and preserving graffiti as cultural heritage.

The transition to maize agriculture frames important cultural shifts in the Eastern Woodlands. However, the tempo and mode of this transition are unclear, particularly when analytical techniques are not standard across the region. In this article, we present evidence of directly dated maize macrobotanical fragments from the Turpin site in southwest Ohio that date between cal AD 552–649 and 684–994. These dates add to current dialogues on the spread of maize in the American Midcontinent and help further situate the Middle Ohio Valley as a cultural crossroads through which people and ideas flowed. We echo suggestions that, to refine our understanding of the introduction of maize into the region, we must develop pan-regional analytical standards and create multiple working hypotheses at a variety of scales.