Radiocarbon dating of Aspromonte sessile oaks reveals the oldest dated temperate flowering tree in the world

Ecology ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (12) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianluca Piovesan ◽  
Michele Baliva ◽  
Lucio Calcagnile ◽  
Marisa D’Elia ◽  
Isabel Dorado‐Liñán ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laís Aguiar da Silveira MENDES ◽  
Etiene Fabbrin PIRES ◽  
Maria Ecilene Nunes da Silva MENESES ◽  
Hermann BEHLING

The Bananal Island is regarded the largest fluvial island in the world, bounded by Araguaia and Javaés rivers, being located in southwest of Tocantins. The objectives of this work were to provide information about the vegetational changes that occurred at the Bananal Island, in order to contribute to the understanding the dynamics of past and current savanna and areas of ecotones with forests. Thus, a sedimentary core collected from a small lake at the Bananal Island plain was submitted to pollen and radiocarbon dating analyses. The results showed that the last millennium was dominated by forest reflecting a wet climate. At the beginning of the record (920-770 yr cal BP) the wet climate and high rainfall produced flooding during long rainy seasons that maintained the Javaés River connected to the studied lake, and hence, this environment was marked by the presence of a homogenous forest rich in Moraceae/Urticaceae, due to flooded soils occurrence. During the following period (770-304 yr cal BP) the reduced rainfall and shortening of the rainy seasons isolated the lake from the Javaés River for long periods, which caused a diversification of the forest and gave rise to the appearance of the components of floodplain forest and marsh vegetation adapted to waterlogged soils. Since 304 years cal BP to the present day this environment remained dominated by this diverse forest and the lacustrine conditions were also similar to previous phase, with a slight increase of moisture in the last 84 years that caused the increase of Piranhea.



Author(s):  
Felix Höflmayer

Radiocarbon dating has become a standard dating method in archaeology almost all over the world. However, in the field of Egyptology and Near Eastern archaeology, the method is still not fully appreciated. Recent years have seen several major radiocarbon projects addressing Egyptian archaeology and chronology that have led to an intensified discussion regarding the application of radiocarbon dating within the field of Egyptology. This chapter reviews the contribution of radiocarbon dating to the discipline of Egyptology, discusses state-of-the-art applications and their impact on archaeological as well as chronological questions, and presents open questions that will be addressed in the years to come.



Radiocarbon ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin Long

The purpose of this Quality Assurance (QA) protocol is to summarize guidelines that have been accepted by directors of many radiocarbon dating laboratories throughout the world, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Some laboratories have followed similar procedures successfully for years. Laboratories that carefully adhere to this protocol will produce consistently reliable data that will be comparable in accuracy to all other laboratories following this or any other equally rigorous quality assurance program. This statement does not, however, pertain to samples with 14C activities highly sensitive to method or degree of pretreatment, as pretreatment techniques vary among laboratories.



2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raffaele Sacchi ◽  
Adele Cutignano ◽  
Gianluca Picariello ◽  
Antonello Paduano ◽  
Alessandro Genovese ◽  
...  

Abstract Using a range of chromatographic, spectroscopic, and mass spectrometric analytical techniques, we characterized one of the “edible items” found at the Vesuvius archeological sites and guarded at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples (MANN) in Naples, Italy. We authenticated the specimen contained in a glass bottle (Mann-S1 sample) as originally olive oil and mapped the deep evolution throughout its 2000 years of storage. Triacylglycerols were completely hydrolyzed, while the resulting (hydroxy) fatty acids had partly condensed into rarely found estolides. A complex pattern of volatile compounds arose mainly from breakdown of oleic acid. With excellent approximation, radiocarbon dating placed the find at the time of the Plinian Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 A.D., indicating that Mann-S1 is probably the oldest residue of olive oil in the world found in bulk amount (nearly 0.7 L).



1986 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Ross Mackay

Ibyuk Pingo, which is 49 m high and 300 m in basal diameter, is one of the largest pingos in the world. Precise surveys carried out for the 1973 to 1983 period indicate that the lower half of the pingo, below a height of 25 m, shows no perceptible growth. From 25 m to the top, the growth steadily increases to a maximum of 2.3 cm/yr at the summit. The source of growth is believed to lie at a depth of about 65 m below the highest peak. Evidence based upon the depth of permafrost near the pingo, radiocarbon dating of wood in the pingo overburden, heat conduction theory, and the measured growth rate suggests an age of about 1300 ± 200 yr. Ibyuk Pingo is in an unstable state and collapse could be initiated by further slumping, a thermal disturbance to the crater, or erosion along a radial dilation crack. A study of the potential collapse pattern of Ibyuk Pingo suggests a number of criteria that might be employed in the environmental reconstruction of large circular features that might be identified as collapsed pingo remnants.



Radiocarbon ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Bayliss

Sixty years ago, the advent of radiocarbon dating rewrote archaeological chronologies around the world. Forty years ago, the advent of calibration signaled the death knell of the diffusionism that had been the mainstay of archaeological thought for a century. Since then, the revolution has continued, as the extent of calibration has been extended ever further back and as the range of material that can be dated has been expanded. Now a new revolution beckons, one that could allow archaeology to engage in historical debate and usher in an entirely new kind of (pre)history. This paper focuses on more than a decade of experience in utilizing Bayesian approaches routinely for the interpretation of14C dates in English archaeology, discussing both the practicalities of implementing these methods and their potential for changing archaeological thinking.



1978 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 865-873 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Duford ◽  
G. D. Osborn

Ages of glacial deposits in cirques of the Shuswap Highland, British Columbia are approximated or bracketed using tephrochronology, radiocarbon dating and lichenometry. There is evidence for two minor Holocene glacial advances. The younger, named the Raft Mountain Advance, is defined by the type Raft Mountain moraine, which is about 100 years old judging from Rhizocarpon lichens. No volcanic ash is found on the moraine or its equivalents. The older, named the Dunn Peak Advance, is defined by the type Dunn Peak moraine and equivalent deposits in the Dunn Peak area. These deposits bear Mazama ash and are thus older than 6600 years; one of the moraines has a minimum radiocarbon age of about 7400 years. The deposits are younger than the Late Wisconsin deglaciation in southern B.C. (about 11 000 years BP). In addition, an earlier event, possibly a stillstand, is represented by a moraine (the Harper Creek moraine) downstream of the type Dunn Peak moraine. This moraine is also bracketed between 6600 and 11 000 years in age. The Dunn Peak Advance may be correlative with an Early Holocene Advance reported from the Canadian Rockies and northern American Rockies, and the Raft Mountain Advance is correlative with very recent advances reported from several parts of the world.



2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Wetterich ◽  
Julian B. Murton ◽  
Phillip Toms ◽  
Jamie Wood ◽  
Alexander Blinov ◽  
...  

<p>Dating of ancient permafrost is essential for understanding permafrost stability and interpreting past climate and environmental conditions over Pleistocene timescales but faces substantial challenges to geochronology.</p><p>Here, we date permafrost from the world’s largest retrogressive thaw slump at Batagay in the Yana Upland, East Siberia (67.58 °N, 134.77 °E). The slump headwall exposes four generations of ice and sand-ice (composite) wedges that formed synchronously with permafrost aggradation. The stratigraphy differentiates into a Lower Ice Complex (IC) overlain by a Lower Sand Unit, an Upper IC and an Upper Sand Unit. Two woody beds below and above the Lower Sand Unit represent the remains of two episodes of taiga forest development prior to the Holocene forest. Thus, the ancient permafrost at Batagay potentially provides one of the longest terrestrial records of Pleistocene environments in western Beringia.</p><p>We apply four dating methods to the permafrost deposits to disentangle the chronology of the Batagay permafrost archive – optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of quartz and post-infrared-stimulated luminescence (pIR-IRSL) dating of feldspar as well as accelerator mass spectrometry-based Cl-36/Cl dating of wedge ice and radiocarbon dating of organic material.</p><p>The age information obtained so far indicates that the Batagay permafrost sequence is discontinuous and that the Lower IC developed well before MIS 7, the overlying Lower Sand Unit formed during MIS 6, and the Upper IC and the Upper Sand Unit formed both during MIS 3-2.</p><p>Additional sampling for all dating approaches presented here took place in spring 2019, and is part of ongoing research to enhance the geochronology of the exceptional palaeoenvironmental archive of the Batagay megaslump.</p>



Antiquity ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 86 (332) ◽  
pp. 383-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Denbow

This is the first description of the prehistory of the coastal Congo, won by the author and his colleagues against considerable odds: war, exploitation by big business and, above all, by the entrenched assumption that this part of the world had no history to save. Here is a first glimpse of that history: 3300 years of prehistoric settlement, movement and change chronicled by radiocarbon dating and a new ceramic typology.



2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-123
Author(s):  
Irka Hajdas ◽  
Mantana Maurer ◽  
Maria Belen Röttig

AbstractNumerous ruins around the world lack the radiometric dating due to the scarcity of organic carbon. Here, we present results of radiocarbon dating of mortar samples from an early Medieval church Hohenrätien GR, Switzerland, which was dated to the early 6th century, based on typology. The method of dating mortars, which is currently applied at the ETH laboratory, involves sieving the crushed mortar, selection of grain size 45−63 μm and sequential dissolution resulting in four fractions of CO2 collected in a 3-second interval each. Two mortar samples, which were analyzed using sequential dissolution and one by dating a bulk of lime lump, resulted in a combined radiocarbon age of 1551±21 BP translating to the calendar age of 427−559 AD.



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