Radiocarbon Dating Lists and Their Use

Extract

“The Denbigh Flint Complex is Not Yet Dated,” (American Antiquity, Vol. 20, No. 4, pp. 375-6) by J. L. Giddings raises a number of general questions concerning the collection of samples and the listings and use of radiocarbon dates which are not confined to the Denbigh material. Giddings says he is a “little worried about our use of ‘lists’ of radiocarbon dates in view of the recent treatment of some dates from Cape Denbigh.” The publication of lists of dates has proved to be of considerable value to anyone who is interested in chronological problems. Primarily the lists facilitate reference. If the more than 2000 determinations were scattered in archaeological, geological, botanical, palaeobotanical and physical literature, it would be practically impossible to find them. For example, an archaeologist might never learn that a date on a level correlative with the Mesolithic but identified by pollen analysis had ever been determined.