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European Middle and Upper Palaeolithic radiocarbon dates are often older than they look: problems with previous dates and some remedies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Thomas Higham
Thomas Higham*
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK
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Extract

Few events of European prehistory are more important than the transition from ancient to modern humans around 40 000 years ago, a period that unfortunately lies near the limit of radiocarbon dating. This paper shows that as many as 70 per cent of the oldest radiocarbon dates in the literature may be too young, due to contamination by modern carbon. Future dates can be made more secure — and previous dates revised — using more refined methods of pre-treatment described here.

Keywords

Middle PalaeolithicUpper PalaeolithicNeanderthalanatomically modern humansradiocarbon datingsamplingpre-treatmentcontamination
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 327 , March 2011 , pp. 235 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

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