Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T06:12:27.840Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Calibration Commentary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

S P E Blockley  and
R A Housley
S P E Blockley*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom
R A Housley*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom
*
Corresponding author. Email: Simon.Blockley@rhul.ac.uk.
Corresponding author. Email: rupert.housley@rhul.ac.uk.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

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.

Radiocarbon is by far and away the most widely used dating tool in the Late Quaternary. Hundreds of key papers rely on the method to provide absolute and relative chronological information on important topics, including the late evolution of our own species (e.g. Higham et al. 2006a) and the timing and nature of abrupt climatic changes during the last glaciation (Lowe et al. 2001). Calibration of 14C determinations is an essential part of the dating process, and the implications of calibration can lead to significant differences in the interpretation of important processes (Blockley et al. 2006). Any development that enhances the accuracy, precision, or time coverage of the calibration curves is therefore to be welcomed. Since the early 1980s, there has been periodic publication of carefully vetted data in the form of internationally recognized consensus calibration curves that have allowed 14C users to convert their raw 14C determinations into calendar ages (Klein et al. 1982; Stuiver and Reimer 1986, 1993; Stuiver et al. 1998; Reimer et al. 2004). In the beginning, the basis on which this was done was easy to understand, 14C measurements were made on tree rings and the absolute calendar age came from counting annual growth rings. Although not without its complexities, the terrestrial tree-ring approach remains the most certain method and is at the heart of calibration process in the period 0–12.4 cal kyr. However, for periods beyond the limit of the tree-ring sequences the situation was significantly more problematic, and at times, even controversial.

Type
Calibration
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , 2009 , pp. 287 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

REFERENCES

Bayliss, A, Whittle, A, Wysocki, M. 2007. Talking about my generation: the date of the West Kennet long barrow. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17(Supplement S1):85–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaauw, M, Christen, JA. 2005. Radiocarbon peat chronologies and environmental change. Applied Statistics 54(4):805–16.Google Scholar
Blackwell, PG, Buck, CE. 2003. The Late Glacial human reoccupation of north-western Europe: new approaches to space-time modelling. Antiquity 77(296):232–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blockley, SPE, Lowe, JJ, Walker, MJC, Asioli, A, Trincardi, F, Coope, GR, Donahue, RE. 2004. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon chronologies: examples from the European Late-glacial. Journal of Quaternary Science 19(2):159–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blockley, SPE, Blockley, SM, Donahue, RE, Lane, CS, Lowe, JJ, Pollard, AM. 2006. The chronology of abrupt climate change and Late Upper Palaeolithic human adaptation in Europe. Journal of Quaternary Science 21(5):575–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blockley, SPE, Blaauw, M, Bronk Ramsey, C, van der Plicht, J. 2007. Building and testing age models for radiocarbon dates in Lateglacial and Holocene sediments. Quaternary Science Reviews 26(15–16):1915–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2001. Development of the radiocarbon calibration program. Radiocarbon 43(2A):355–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2008. Deposition models for chronological records. Quaternary Science Reviews 27(1–2):42–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buck, CE, Kenworthy, JB, Litton, CD, Smith, AFM. 1991. Combining archaeological and radiocarbon information: a Bayesian approach to calibration. Antiquity 65(249):808–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buck, CE, Christen, JA, James, GN. 1999. BCal: an on-line Bayesian radiocarbon calibration tool. Internet Archaeology 7: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue7/buck_index.html.Google Scholar
Chiu, T-C, Fairbanks, RG, Mortlock, RA, Bloom, AL. 2005. Extending the radiocarbon calibration beyond 26,000 years before present using fossil corals. Quaternary Science Reviews 24(16–17):1797–808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danzeglocke, U, Jöris, O, Weninger, B. 2007. CalPal online [WWW software]. http://www.calpal-online.de/.Google Scholar
De Vivo, B, Rolandi, G, Gans, PB, Calvert, A, Bohrson, WA, Spera, FJ, Belkin, HE. 2001. New constraints on the pyroclastic eruptive history of the Campanian volcanic Plain (Italy). Mineralogy and Petrology 73(1–3):47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairbanks, RG, Mortlock, RA, Chiu, T-C, Cao, L, Kaplan, A, Guilderson, TP, Fairbanks, TW, Bloom, AL, Grootes, PM, Nadeau, M-J. 2005. Radiocarbon calibration curve spanning 0 to 50,000 years BP based on paired 230Th/234U/238U and 14C dates on pristine corals. Quaternary Science Reviews 24(16–17):1781–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finlayson, C, Fa, DA, Jiménez Espejo, F, Carrión, JS, Finlayson, G, Giles Pacheco, F, Rodríguez Vidal, J, Stringer, C, Martínez Ruiz, F. 2008. Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar—the persistence of a Neanderthal population. Quaternary International 181(1):64–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higham, T, Bronk Ramsey, C, Karavanić, I, Smith, FH, Trinkaus, E. 2006a. Revised direct radiocarbon dating of the Vindija G1 Upper Paleolithic Neandertals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 103(3):553–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Higham, TFG, Jacobi, RM, Bronk Ramsey, C. 2006b. AMS radiocarbon dating of ancient bone using ultrafiltration. Radiocarbon 48(2):179–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Housley, RA, Glamble, CS, Street, M, Pettitt, P. 1997. Radiocarbon evidence for the Lateglacial human recolonization of northern Europe. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 63:25–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughen, K, Southon, J, Lehman, S, Bertrand, C, Turnbull, J. 2006. Marine-derived 14C calibration and activity record for the past 50,000 years updated from the Cariaco Basin. Quaternary Science Reviews 25(23–24):3216–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, J, Lerman, JC, Damon, PE, Ralph, EK. 1982. Calibration of radiocarbon dates: tables based on consensus data of the Workshop on Calibrating the Radiocarbon Time Scale. Radiocarbon 24(2):103–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, JJ, Hoek, WZ, group, INTIMATE. 2001. Inter-regional correlation of palaeoclimatic records for the Last Glacial-Interglacial transition: a protocol for improved precision recommended by the INTIMATE project group. Quaternary Science Reviews 20(11):1175–87.Google Scholar
Parnell, AC, Haslett, J, Allen, JRM, Buck, CE, Huntley, B. 2008. A flexible approach to assessing synchroneity of past events using Bayesian reconstructions of sedimentation history. Quaternary Science Reviews 27(19–20):1872–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pyle, DM, Ricketts, GD, Margari, V, van Andel, TH, Sinitsyn, AA, Praslov, ND, Nicolai, D, Lisitsyn, S. 2006. Wide dispersal and deposition of distal tephra during the Pleistocene ‘Campanian Ignimbrite/Y5’ eruption, Italy. Quaternary Science Reviews 25(21–22):2713–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Baillie, MGL, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Beck, JW, Bertrand, CJH, Blackwell, PG, Buck, CE, Burr, GS, Cutler, KB, Damon, PE, Edwards, RL, Fairbanks, RG, Friedrich, M, Guilderson, TP, Hogg, AG, Hughen, KA, Kromer, B, McCormac, G, Manning, S, Bronk Ramsey, C, Reimer, RW, Remmele, S, Southon, JR, Stuiver, M, Talamo, S, Taylor, FW, van der Plicht, J, Weyhenmeyer, CE. 2004. IntCal04 terrestrial radiocarbon age calibration, 0–26 cal kyr BP. Radiocarbon 46(3):1029–58.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ. 1986. A computer program for radiocarbon age calibration. Radiocarbon 28(2B):1022–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ. 1993. Extended 14C data base and revised CALIB 3.0 14C age calibration program. Radiocarbon 35(1):215–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ, Braziunas, TF. 1998. High-precision radiocarbon age calibration for terrestrial and marine samples. Radiocarbon 40(3):1127–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Andel, TH. 1998. Middle and Upper Palaeolithic environments and the calibration of 14C dates beyond 10,000 BP. Antiquity 72(275):26–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar