AMS Radiocarbon Dating of the Type Plainview and Firstview (Paleoindian) Assemblages: The Agony and the Ecstasy

1999 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vance T. Holliday ◽  
Eileen Johnson ◽  
Thomas W. Stafford

Plainview and Firstview are two of the principal post-Folsom Paleoindian artifact assemblages on the Great Plains, but good radiometric age control for these artifact styles is relatively poor, due in part to lack of reliable age control on the type collections. This study reports the results of AMS-radiocarbon dating of specific amino acids from Bison antiquus bone associated with the type Plainview and Firstview assemblages from the Plainview and Olsen-Chubbuck sites, respectively. Seven samples of bone and teeth from Plainview produced a surprisingly wide array of ages. As a result, the age of the bone bed and the type Plainview collection remain uncertain, but it is most likely ≥ 10,000 B.P. (but late or post-Folsom) given the dating and stratigraphic relationships at Plainview and other sites. Seven samples of bone from Olsen-Chubbuck yielded a tight cluster of ages averaging ca 9400 B.P., fitting well with other dated Firstview features on the Southern Plains. These results show that much better age control from more sites is needed in order to understand the Paleoindian record. AMS-radiocarbon dating of specific amino acids from bone has revolutionized such issues of chronology in archaeology, but like any other method, it can provide confusing results and must be used in conjunction with other chronometric data.

Radiocarbon ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 31 (03) ◽  
pp. 231-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Austin Long ◽  
A T Wilson ◽  
R D Ernst ◽  
B H Gore ◽  
P E Hare

Modern bone contains ca 25% protein material, most of which is collagen. Amino acids separated from collagen isolated from bone are suitable for 14C dating of fossil bone, but attempts to carry out this procedure on bones seriously depleted in protein can yield erroneous 14C dates. Amino-acid analysis of fossil bone gives quantitative information on the degree of preservation of its organic component. Also, the relative abundance of the amino-acid components reveal the degree to which the collagen-like pattern has been altered. Alteration may be caused by addition of extraneous material. A 1mg sample of bone material is sufficient for this preliminary analysis. We have developed a series of acceptance criteria for whether a particular specimen is likely to yield the correct 14C age. 14C dating of fossil bones not seriously depleted in protein is a straightforward procedure and yields reliable dates.


2010 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 907-933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leland C. Bement ◽  
Brian J. Carter

Clovis hunters of the North American Great Plains are known for their ability to hunt and scavenge mammoths. Less is known of their hunting strategies for other large animals, such as horse, camel, and bison, although remains of these animals have been found at several Clovis camps. Recent investigations of the Jake Bluff site on the southern Plains have identified a Clovis bison kill in an arroyo. The apparent use of an arroyo style trap for bison hunting provides the opportunity to study Clovis hunting strategies that came to be widely used during later Paleoindian times. The arroyo style bison trap is generally attributed to Folsom and later groups, and yet the Jake Bluff site yielded an association of Clovis-style projectile points with the remains of 22 Bison antiquus at the bottom of a short arroyo. The late date of 12,838 cal. BP suggests that the site spans the gap between the Clovis mammoth hunter and the Folsom bison hunter, indicating that some Clovis hunters developed the arroyo style bison trap to capture multiple bison at the same time, and as mammoths were extirpated from certain areas during the Pleistocene to Holocene transition.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-419 ◽  
Author(s):  
N Tisnérat-Laborde ◽  
H Valladas ◽  
E Kaltnecker ◽  
M Arnold

In this paper, we explain our routine pretreatment of bone for radiocarbon dating by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), based on the specific reaction between amino acids and ninhydrin described by Nelson (1991). The values and uncertainties of the total system background are presented as a function of the carbon sample mass and the reliability of this method is discussed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 92-100
Author(s):  
Katarina Botić

In this chapter the results of AMS radiocarbon dating of 26 charcoal samples from four sites are discussed. The primary aim was to explore the scope of (dis)continuity of temporally and functionally interconnected types of sites (settlement and iron production workshop). A Bayesian model was created based on the acquired data from excavated sites with three sequences in the model determined. The results show great accordance with the archaeologically based data, with some exceptions that are most probably a result of modelling strategy used. Contemporaneity of all four sites is mostly attested with a possible and very short temporal hiatus around AD 600. Occupation of workshop and residential areas at that time or slightly after may have been linked to the globally attested environmental change during the Bond 1 event when dry and cool conditions prevailed and which could have had an impact on bog iron formation processes.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 1005-1022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaare Lund Rasmussen ◽  
Johannes van der Plicht ◽  
Gregory Doudna ◽  
Frederik Nielsen ◽  
Peter Højrup ◽  
...  

While kept at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, many Dead Sea Scroll fragments were exposed to castor oil by the original team of editors in the course of cleaning the parchments. Castor oil must be regarded as a serious contaminant in relation to radiocarbon dating. If modern castor oil is present and is not removed prior to dating, the 14C dates will be skewed artificially towards modern values. In Rasmussen et al. (2001), it was shown that the standard AAA pretreatment procedure used in the 2 previous studies dating Dead Sea Scroll samples (Bonani et al. 1992; Jull et al. 1995) is not capable of removing castor oil from parchment samples. In the present work, we show that it is unlikely that castor oil reacts with the amino acids of the parchment proteins, a finding which leaves open the possibility of devising a cleaning method that can effectively remove castor oil. We then present 3 different pretreatment protocols designed to effectively remove castor oil from parchment samples. These involve 3 different cleaning techniques: extraction with supercritical CO2, ultrasound cleaning, and Soxhlet extraction—each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Our data show that the protocol involving Soxhlet extraction is the best suited for the purpose of decontaminating the Dead Sea Scrolls, and we recommend that this protocol be used in further attempts to 14C date the Dead Sea Scrolls. If such an attempt is decided on by the proper authorities, we propose a list of Scroll texts, which we suggest be redated in order to validate the 14C dates done earlier by Bonani et al. (1992) and Jull et al. (1995).


Radiocarbon ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 408-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
L Calcagnile ◽  
V Tinè ◽  
G Quarta ◽  
M D'Elia ◽  
G Fiorentino ◽  
...  

The Santuario della Madonna Cave, located near Praia a Mare (Cosenza), along the northwestern coast of Calabria (southern Italy), has an impressive stratigraphy, with occupation phases spanning from the late Paleolithic to the advanced phases of the Middle Bronze Age. Recently, a new excavation area has been opened in the cave from which shortlived vegetal remains were sampled and submitted for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating. The aim of this study was to define an accurate chronology of the different cultural aspects and to explore the potentialities resulting from application of advanced statistical tools for 14C data analysis in such a context.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 933-940 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinya Yatsuzuka ◽  
Mitsuru Okuno ◽  
Toshio Nakamura ◽  
Katsuhiko Kimura ◽  
Yohei Setoma ◽  
...  

We performed accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating and wiggle-matching of 2 wood samples from charred trunks of trees (samples A and B) collected from an ignimbrite deposit on the northeastern slope of the Baitoushan Volcano on the border of China and North Korea. The obtained calendar years for the eruption are cal AD 945–960 for sample A and cal AD 859–884 and cal AD 935–963 for sample B in the 2-σ range. These results are unable to determine the precise eruption age. The reason for the difference in reported ages may be due to volcanic gas emission prior to the huge eruption.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
A J Timothy Jull ◽  
Marten Geertsema

We present results of radiocarbon dating of charcoal from paleosols and buried charcoal horizons in a unique sequence, which potentially records the last 36,000 yr, from a fan at Bear Flat, British Columbia (BC) (56°16'51’N, 121°13'39”W). Evidence for forest-fire charcoal is found over the last 13,500 ± 110 14C yr before present (BP) or 16,250 ± 700 cal BP. The study area is located east of the Rocky Mountains in an area that was ice-free at least 13,970 ± 170 14C yr BP (17,450–16,150 cal BP) ago. The latest evidence of fire is during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). The charcoal ages show a periodicity in large fires on a millennial scale through the Holocene—an average of 4 fires per thousand years. Higher fire frequencies are observed between 2200 to 2800 cal BP, ∼5500 and ∼6000 cal BP, ∼7500 to 8200 cal BP, and 9000 to 10,000 cal BP. These intervals also appear to be times of above-average aggradation of the fan. We conclude that fire frequency is related to large-scale climatic events on a millennial time scale.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 751-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Seager ◽  
Jennifer Nakamura ◽  
Mingfang Ting

AbstractMechanisms of drought onset and termination are examined across North America with a focus on the southern Plains using data from land surface models and regional and global reanalyses for 1979–2017. Continental-scale analysis of covarying patterns reveals a tight coupling between soil moisture change over time and intervening precipitation anomalies. The southern Great Plains are a geographic center of patterns of hydrologic change. Drying is induced by atmospheric wave trains that span the Pacific and North America and place northerly flow anomalies above the southern Plains. In the southern Plains winter is least likely, and fall most likely, for drought onset and spring is least likely, and fall or summer most likely, for drought termination. Southern Plains soil moisture itself, which integrates precipitation over time, has a clear relationship to tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies with cold conditions favoring dry soils. Soil moisture change, however, though clearly driven by precipitation, has a weaker relation to SSTs and a strong relation to internal atmospheric variability. Little evidence is found of connection of drought onset and termination to driving by temperature anomalies. An analysis of particular drought onsets and terminations on the seasonal time scale reveals commonalities in terms of circulation and moisture transport anomalies over the southern Plains but a variety of ways in which these are connected into the large-scale atmosphere and ocean state. Some onsets are likely to be quite predictable due to forcing by cold tropical Pacific SSTs (e.g., fall 2010). Other onsets and all terminations are likely not predictable in terms of ocean conditions.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 43 (2B) ◽  
pp. 1109-1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiyu Guo ◽  
Kexin Liu ◽  
Xiangyang Lu ◽  
Hongji Ma ◽  
Kun Li ◽  
...  

Tianma-Qucun is the biggest site of Western Zhou Dynasty discovered in Shanxi Province, China. It has been recognized as the early capital of Jin, a vassal state of Western Zhou. The territories were granted to the first Marquis of Jin with the title in the early days of Western Zhou. Bone sample series from the site were radiocarbon-dated by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and calibrated with the Oxford calibration program OxCal 3.5. Bayesian analysis of the calibrated ages shows that the earliest residents of the Western Zhou came to Tianma-Qucun area in 1020–940 BC and the lower boundary of the Western Zhou is 796–754 BC, which corresponds well to the historical record 770 BC.


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