Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-kn6lq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-24T18:47:08.993Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

BP: Time for a Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2017

Jesse R Townsley
Jesse R Townsley*
Affiliation:
Editorial Department, Lithic Age Art & Design Research, 104 Paul’s Way, Ithaca, NY 14850 USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: jesstowns@gmail.com.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article proposes a solution to the problem of defining the “present” in the BP time scale as 1950. Discouraging the use of “Before Present,” as well as “Before Physics,” and promoting Radiocarbon’s official definition of “BP is understood as a symbol meaning precisely ‘conventional radiocarbon years before AD 1950’” is advised.

Keywords

radiocarbon datingBP

Information

Type
Technical Note
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 59 , Issue 1 , February 2017 , pp. 177 - 178
Copyright
© 2017 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abel, L. 1953. Radiocarbon dates—a suggestion. American Antiquity 19(2):158.Google Scholar
Council of Science Editors. 2014a. Scientific Style and Format. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p 196.Google Scholar
Council of Science Editors. 2014b. Scientific Style and Format. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p 197–198.Google Scholar
Flint, RF, Deevey, ES. 1962. Editorial statement. Radiocarbon 4(1):i–ii.Google Scholar
Radiocarbon . 2017. Instructions for contributors. URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon/information/instructions-contributors.Google Scholar
van der Plicht, J, Hogg, A. 2006. A note on reporting radiocarbon. Quaternary Geochronology 1(4):237–240.Google Scholar