Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T05:37:35.039Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Checking Back on an Assemblage of Published Radiocarbon Dates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

M G L Baillie*
Affiliation:
Palaeoecology Centre, The Queen's University, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

It is clear that radiocarbon researchers take a forward view towards the improvement of accuracy and precision in dating. Unfortunately, archaeologists base much of their research on the published dates produced in the past. Archaeologists and other users of radiocarbon dates should understand the limitations associated with past dates. This article addresses these limitations by looking at a large number of routine radiocarbon dates associated with a block of English tree-ring chronologies, the true ages of which are now known within close limits. My conclusion supports the idea of global multiplication factors as proposed by the International Study Group (1982).

Type
Session IV
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

References

Baillie, MGL and Brown, DM 1988 An overview of oak chronologies. Br Archaeol Repts, Br ser 196: 543548.Google Scholar
Baillie, MGL and Pilcher, JR 1988 Make a date with a tree. New Scientist 117: 4851.Google Scholar
Baillie, MGL, Pilcher, JR and Pearson, GW 1983 Dendrochronology at Belfast as a background to high-precision calibration. in Stuiver, M and Kra, RS, eds, Internatl 14C conf, 11th, Proc. Radiocarbon 25(2): 171178.Google Scholar
Hillam, J 1988 Dendrochronology - 20 years on. Current Archaeology 107: 358363.Google Scholar
Hillam, J, Groves, CM, Brown, DM, Baillie, MGL, Coles, JM and Coles, BJ 1990 Dendrochronology of the English Neolithic. Antiquity 64: 210220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Study Group 1982 An inter-laboratory comparison of radiocarbon measurements in tree-rings. Nature 298: 619-623.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leuschner, HH von and Delorme, A 1984 Verlangerung der Gottingen Eichenjahrringchronologien fur Nord- und Suddeutschland bis zum Jahr 4008 v Chr. Forstarchiv 55: 14.Google Scholar
Morgan, RA 1988 Tree-ring studies of wood used in Neolithic and Bronze Age trackways from the Somerset Levels. Br Archaeol Repts Br ser 184:Google Scholar
Morgan, RA, Litton, CD and Salisbury, CR 1987 Trackways and tree trunks - Dating Neolithic oaks in the British Isles. Tree-Ring Bull 47: 6169.Google Scholar
Pearson, GW 1986 Precise calendrical dating of known growth-period samples using a ‘curve fitting’ technique. in Stuiver, M and Kra, RS, eds, Internatl 14C conf, 12th, Proc. Radiocarbon 28(2A): 292299.Google Scholar
Pilcher, JR, Baillie, MGL, Schmidt, B and Becker, B 1984 A 7272-year tree-ring chronology for western Europe. Nature 312: 150152.Google Scholar
Salisbury, CR, Whitley, PJ, Litton, CD and Fox, JL 1984 Flandrian courses of the River Trent at Colwick, Nottingham. The Mercian Geologist 9(4): 189207.Google Scholar
Scott, EM, Baxter, MS and Aitchison, TC 1983 14C dating reproducibility: Evidence from a combined experimental and statistical programme. in Waterbolk, HT and Mook, WG, eds, Internatl symposium 14C and Archaeology, Proc. PACT 8 (II.7): 133145.Google Scholar