The Impact of Radiocarbon Dating on Near Eastern Prehistory

1992 ◽  
pp. 324-334
Author(s):  
Donald O. Henry
Keyword(s):  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Impact

Radiocarbon Dating and Egyptian Chronology—From the “Curve of Knowns” to Bayesian Modeling

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felix Höflmayer
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Modeling ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
The World ◽  
Dating Method ◽  
To Come ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Egyptian Archaeology

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 Dates and New World Chronology

Antiquity ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 35 (140) ◽  
pp. 286-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Bushnell
Keyword(s):  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
New World ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
The Past ◽  
University Of Cambridge ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact

It is a commonplace of current archaeology that the publication of radiocarbon dates is revolutionizing our ideas of the past. Dr G. H. S. Bushnell, Curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in the University of Cambridge, England, has already published in ANTIQUITY and elsewhere some of his views on the impact of radiocarbon dating on New World chronology. Here he studies the whole problem in detail. He adopts the useful convention of referring to a date already fully published in the Radiocarbon Supplement to the American Journal of Science simply by its laboratory designation and number {thus K-554 is reading no. 554 of the Copenhagen Laboratory), but in some cases, where the date is not fully published, he gives fuller information.

scholarly journals The impact of Last Glacial climate variability in west-European loess revealed by radiocarbon dating of fossil earthworm granules

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (24) ◽  
pp. 6209-6214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Moine ◽  
Pierre Antoine ◽  
Christine Hatté ◽  
Amaëlle Landais ◽  
Jérôme Mathieu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Luminescence Dating ◽  
Environmental Response ◽  
Sea Level Changes ◽  
Soil Horizons ◽  
European Continent ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Glacial Climate

The characterization of Last Glacial millennial-timescale warming phases, known as interstadials or Dansgaard–Oeschger events, requires precise chronologies for the study of paleoclimate records. On the European continent, such chronologies are only available for several Last Glacial pollen and rare speleothem archives principally located in the Mediterranean domain. Farther north, in continental lowlands, numerous high-resolution records of loess and paleosols sequences show a consistent environmental response to stadial–interstadial cycles. However, the limited precision and accuracy of luminescence dating methods commonly used in loess deposits preclude exact correlations of paleosol horizons with Greenland interstadials. To overcome this problem, a radiocarbon dating protocol has been developed to date earthworm calcite granules from the reference loess sequence of Nussloch (Germany). Its application yields a consistent radiocarbon chronology of all soil horizons formed between 47 and 20 ka and unambiguously shows the correlation of every Greenland interstadial identified in isotope records with specific soil horizons. Furthermore, eight additional minor soil horizons dated between 27.5 and 21 ka only correlate with minor decreases in Greenland dust records. This dating strategy reveals the high sensitivity of loess paleoenvironments to Northern Hemisphere climate changes. A connection between loess sedimentation rate, Fennoscandian ice sheet dynamics, and sea level changes is proposed. The chronological improvements enabled by the radiocarbon “earthworm clock” thus strongly enhance our understanding of loess records to a better perception of the impact of Last Glacial climate changes on European paleoenvironments.

The Impact of Radiocarbon Dating on the Establishment of the Prehistoric Chronology of Brittany

1971 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. R. Giot
Keyword(s):  
Time Scales ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
The Real ◽  
De Vries ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Neolithic Cultures

From their onset, the first radiocarbon dates gave a range of the absolute chronology to come, but in their detail, they opened more problems than they settled, chiefly because of the possible or unsuspected questions in relation to the reliability of the samples themselves (Delibrias and Giot, 1970). It is only with the experience of great numbers of dates, and the possibility of considering them so to speak statistically, that one can evaluate the real implications of the time scales provided by the method.In Brittany, beginning with a few dates provided by the Groningen Laboratory under H. de Vries, we have been afterwards nearly totally supplied by the Centre des Faibles Radioactivités at Gif-sur-Yvette (Giot, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971; Coursaget and Le Run, 1968; Delibrias, Guillier and Labeyrie, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1969, 1970; Coppens, Durand and Guillet, 1968; Vogel and Waterbolk, 1963).We now benefit with more than 200 radiocarbon dates for Brittany alone. We shall consider here about 140 of them, disregarding some duplicates, dates pertaining to periods older than the Neolithic cultures or on the contrary later than the Iron Age, and dates only concerning geological natural sites, though these can be full of interest by their information about the botanical scenery and the effects of cultivation or pasture.

A revolution in radiocarbon dating

Antiquity ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 53 (209) ◽  
pp. 226-228
Keyword(s):  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Cosmic Ray ◽  
New Method ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
University Of Toronto ◽  
Archaeological Materials ◽  
Dating Method ◽  
Atom Counting ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Near Eastern Studies

The conventional radiocarbon dating method relies on the accurate measurement of a sample's beta-ray decay rate in order to determine the age of the sample. The new method instead counts the individual C14 atoms in a sample using an ultra-sensitive mass spectrometer. There are numerous advantages to this approach. The problem of cosmic ray background does not arise. Shorter counting times on samples a thousand times smaller may be possible. We might also expect the production of more accurate age determinations. The new method will permit a great expansion in the variety of archaeological materials which can be dated because only milligram samples will be required. Research on the design of a dedicated C14 atom-counting machine is now in progress. This note is by E. B. Banning, Department of Near Eastern Studies and Department of Physics Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Toronto, Canada, and L. A. Pavlish, Department of Anthropology and Department of Physics Archaeometry Laboratory, University of Toronto, Canada.

Radiocarbon dating evidence on the impact of atmospheric pollution on upland peats

Nature ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 282 (5741) ◽  
pp. 829-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. M. Chambers ◽  
P. Q. Dresser ◽  
A. G. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Atmospheric Pollution ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
The Impact

scholarly journals All Choice is Political

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Doerfler ◽  
Shawkat Toorawa
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Literature ◽  
Yale University ◽  
International Crisis ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Shawkat M. Toorawa serves as Professor of Arabic Literature and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale University. In this conversation he reflects on his decades-long experience as a teacher and administrator in the U.S. and abroad; the role of politics in classroom and curriculum; and the impact of race, religion, and international crisis on pedagogical engagement.

scholarly journals The Impact of Radiocarbon Dating on Old World Archaeology: Past Achievements and Future Expectations

Radiocarbon ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
O Bar-Yosef
Keyword(s):  
Tree Ring ◽  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Future Expectations ◽  
Old World ◽  
World Archaeology ◽  
Counting Time ◽  
The Impact

Half a century since radiocarbon was first used in the archaeology of the Old World, it seems that the expectations of W F Libby may be becoming a reality. In 1952 (Libby 1952:97), he wrote:Archaeologists, geologists and palynologists are continually searching for the means to improve methods of counting time. The … relative chronologies lack precision and direct correlation with the calendar, except when they may be checked with, … for example, the calendar based on tree-ring counts.

scholarly journals The Islamic Scholarly Tradition

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 120-124
Author(s):  
Dale J. Correa
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Social Activity ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Mamluk Period ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Early Islamic

This collection comprises fourteen papers delivered at a December 2010 conference held at Princeton University in honor of Michael A. Cook, as well as a preface and an introduction. Its four sections are designed to reflect the prin- cipal areas of Near Eastern and Islamic studies to which Cook has contributed: “Early Islamic History,” “Early Modern and Modern Islamic History,” “Juridical and Intellectual History,” and “Reinterpretations and Transformations.” The papers cover a broad geographic range from al-Andalus to Central Asia, and an extensive disciplinary range, with studies of calendars, conquest, fatāwā, tafsīr, and logic, among other subjects. Part 1 begins with Michael Bonner’s “‘Time Has Come Full Circle’: Markets, Fairs, and the Calendar in Arabia before Islam,” which addresses the intercalation of Arabia’s pre-Islamic calendar and the utility of sources for social history in dealing with this topic. He extends his confirmation of intercalation to a discussion of trade and social activity, noting that the shift to the Islamic lunar calendar indicated a shift to a new moral and social order and a true “revolution” in breaking with the past. In “The Wasiyya of Abū Hāshim: The Impact of Polemic in Premodern Muslim Historiography,” Najam Haider focuses on reports of the alleged testament (in 98/716-17) of Abu Hashim in which, written just before his death, he transferred his imamate and leadership to the Abbasid Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abdullah. Relying primarily on Jacob Lassner’s approach to early material of this kind, which focuses on political propaganda and ideological debates, the author highlights the competition among reports of this testament and, later on in the Mamluk period, the processes of crafting a historical narrative that removed the polemical aspects. His study exemplifies the use of an alternative approach to early Islamic history, one that focuses on what compilations of historical reports tell us about contemporaneous political situations and religious doctrine, as well as about the historiographic methods of pre-modern historians ...

Millennial-timescale reconstruction of Upper Pleistocene temperature and precipitation derived from earthworm calcite granules in western European loess profiles

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Prud'homme ◽  
Peter Fischer ◽  
Olaf Jöris ◽  
Christine Hatté ◽  
Mathias Vinnepand ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Radiocarbon Dating ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
Last Glacial ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Rhine Valley ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Last Glacial ◽  
Ice Core Records

<p>Loess-Palaeosol Sequences (LPS) represent the most extensive Quaternary terrestrial archives. Although researchers have long been able to identify short-lived climatic changes in LPS through stratigraphy, until recently we have lacked the tools to 1) identify how continuous loess archives may be, and to what extent short-lived, millennial-timescale climatic events were recorded in loess sediments, and to 2) quantitatively reconstruct past climate parameters from loess proxies. Stratigraphically, the impact of short-lived climatic cycles can be observed in the form of primary loess deposits reflecting cold stadial conditions, intercalated with arctic and boreal brown soils and tundra gley horizons indicating milder interstadials. Short-term establishment and subsequent degradation of an active permafrost layer can also be identified in temperate-latitude loess such as that found in the Rhine Valley of central-western Europe. Recently developed proxy methods can now be used to quantify climatic parameters such as temperature and precipitation in these regions <sup>1,2</sup>. Associated with radiocarbon dating, these new approaches will vastly improve our understanding of continental environmental changes through the Upper Pleistocene, which can now be compared at high temporal resolution with marine and ice core records. In particular, the quantity and stable isotope ratios of crystalline calcite granules (> 0.8 mm), secreted by earthworms (<em>Lumbricus sp.</em>)  at the soil surface, preserve climate information contemporaneous with deposition of the loess sediment.</p><p>In this study, we assess the utility of the earthworm calcite granules (ECG) approach by reconstructing temperature and precipitation at high resolution between 50 and 15 ka from two temporally overlapping loess sequences, Schwalbenberg and Nussloch, situated approximately 200 km apart in the German Rhine Valley. ECG counts down the two profiles reveal millennial-timescale climatic variations; high ECG concentrations associated with pedogenetic horizons suggest milder climatic with increasing biological activity and vegetation cover. Using empirical equations based on 1) observations of modern earthworm response to temperature and 2) the linear relationship between ∆<sup>13</sup>C values of plants and precipitation, the stable oxygen and carbon isotope compositions from ECGs can be used as direct proxies for warm season temperature and annual soil moisture, respectively. We embed our climate reconstructions within Bayesian age models based on radiocarbon dating of ECG in order to establish precise correlations between the two sequences and with other climatic archives. We find that ECGs provide valuable proxies able to meaningfully quantify palaeoclimate variations from terrestrial deposits over millennial timescales. Our results further show periods of quasi-simultaneous climatic change in the Northern Hemisphere, closely linking the climatic signatures recorded in the Upper Pleistocene of Schwalbenberg and Nussloch to the Greenland ice core records.</p><p>References: </p><p>1. Prud’homme, C. <em>et al.</em> Palaeotemperature reconstruction during the Last Glacial from δ<sup>18</sup>O of earthworm calcite granules from Nussloch loess sequence, Germany. <em>Earth Planet. Sci. Lett.</em> <strong>442</strong>, 13–20 (2016).</p><p>2. Prud’homme, C. <em>et al.</em> δ<sup> 13</sup>C signal of earthworm calcite granules: a new proxy for palaeoprecipitation reconstructions during the Last Glacial in Western Europe. <em>Quat. Sci. Rev.</em> <strong>179</strong>, 158–166 (2018).</p>

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