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The Marine ΔR for Nenumbo (Solomon Islands): A Case Study in Calculating Reservoir Offsets from Paired Sample Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Martin Jones ,
Fiona Petchey ,
Roger Green ,
Peter Sheppard  and
Matthew Phelan
Martin Jones*
Affiliation:
PO Box 58, Port Chalmers 9050, New Zealand
Fiona Petchey
Affiliation:
Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, University of Waikato, Gate 9, Hillcrest Road, Hamilton, New Zealand
Roger Green
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, Human Sciences Building, 10 Symonds St., Auckland, New Zealand
Peter Sheppard
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Auckland, Human Sciences Building, 10 Symonds St., Auckland, New Zealand
Matthew Phelan
Affiliation:
Aboriginal Affairs Victoria, GPO Box 2392, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia
*
Corresponding author. Email: martin@analytic.co.nz.
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Abstract

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It is necessary to calculate location-specific marine ΔR values in order to calibrate marine samples using calibration curves such as those provided through the IntCal98 (Stuiver et al. 1998) data. Where known-age samples are available, this calculation is straightforward (i.e. Stuiver et al. 1986). In the case that a paired marine/terrestrial sample calculation is performed, however, the standard calculation (i.e. Stuiver and Braziunas 1993) requires that the samples are treated as relating to isochronous events. This may not be an appropriate assumption for many archaeological paired samples. In this paper, we present an approach to calculating marine ΔR values that does not require the dated events to be treated as isochronous. When archaeological evidence allows the dated events to be tightly temporally constrained, the approach presented here and that described by Stuiver and Braziunas (1993) give very similar results. However, where tight temporal constraints are less certain, the 2 approaches can give rise to differing results. The example analysis considered here shows that a ΔR of −81 ± 64 14C yr is appropriate for samples in the vicinity of Nenumbo (Reef Islands, southeast Solomon Islands) around the period 2000–3000 BP.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , 2007 , pp. 95 - 102
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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