Hostname: page-component-6898cfcb55-w5hgh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-11T07:52:30.481Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How to cope with calibration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Gordon W. Pearson
Gordon W. Pearson*
Affiliation:
Palaeoecology Centre (Radiocarbon Dating Research Unit), The Queen's University of Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The first calibration curve, published by Suess in 1967 (Suess 1967), was a wiggly thing arrived at by a process Suess called ‘cosmic schwung’. Later curves used more formal statistical methods, including Clark's published in ANTIQUITY (Clark 1975), which came to be one of the most used. It would be good to have the new standard curves available in ANTIQUITY, but they are far too bulky. We recommend the now-indispensable calibration issue of Radiocarbon (Stuiver & Kra 1986), which takes 230 large-format pages to set them out as tables, graphs and a computer program.

Gordon Pearson is the British end of the Anglo-American axis, with Minze Stuiver at the University of Washington, largely responsible for the new calibration. He summarizes what the calibration does and how best to work with it.

This paper is a guide to working with the Radiocarbon calibration issue in particular, as well as calibration curves in general. It therefore follows the conventions for calibrated and uncalibrated dates that are presented there, rather than ANTIQUITY's normal convention.

Information

Type
Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 61 , Issue 231 , March 1987, pp. 98 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Clark, R.M. 1975. A calibration curve for radiocarbon dates, Antiquity 49: 251–66.Google Scholar
Kromer, B., Bruns, M., Schoch-Fischer, H. & Münnich, K.O.. 1986. Radiocarbon calibration data for the 6th to the 8th millennia BC, in Stuiver, & Kra, 1986: 954–60.Google Scholar
Linick, T.W., Long, A., Damon, P.E. & Ferguson, C.W.. 1986. High-precision radiocarbon dating of bristlecone pine from 6550 to 5350 BC, in Stuiver, & Kra, 1986: 943–53.Google Scholar
Linick, T.W., Suess, H.E. & Becker, B.. 1985. La Jolla measurements of radiocarbon in south German oak tree-ring chronologies, Radiocarbon 27 (1): 20–32.Google Scholar
Pearson, G.W. 1986. Precise calendrical dating of known growth-period samples using a ‘curve fitting’ technique, Radiocarbon 28 (2A): 292–9.Google Scholar
Pearson, G.W., Pilcher, J.R., Baillie, M.G.L., Corbett, D.M. & Qua, F.. 1986. High precision 14C measurements of Irish oaks to show the natural 14C variations from AD 1840–5210 BC, in Stuiver, & Kra, 1986: 911–34.Google Scholar
Pearson, G.W. & Stuiver, M.. 1986. High-precision calibration of the radiocarbon time scale 500–2500 BC, in Stuiver, & Kra, 1986: 839–62.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. & Kra, R.S.. (ed.). 1986. Radiocarbon calibration issue: proceedings of the Twelfth International Radiocarbon Conference, June 24–28 1985, Trondheim, Norway. Radiocarbon 28 (2B).Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Kromer, B., Becker, B. & Ferguson, C.W.. 1986. Radiocarbon age calibration back to 13,000 years BP and the 14C age matching of the German oak and US bristlecone pine chronologies, in Stuiver, & Kra, 1986: 969–79.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. & Pearson, G.W.. 1986. High-precision calibration of the radiocarbon time scale, AD 1950–500 BC, in Stuiver, & Kra, 1986: 805–38.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M., Pearson, G.W. & Braziunas, T.. 1986. Radiocarbon calibration of marine samples back to 9000 cal yr BP, in Stuiver, & Kra, 1986: 980–1021.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M. & Reimer, P.J.. 1986. A computer program for radiocarbon age calibration, in Stuiver, & Kra, 1986: 1022–30.Google Scholar
Suess, H.E. 1967. Bristlecone pine calibration of the radiocarbon time scale from 4100 B.C. to 1500 B.C., in Proceedings of the Symposium on Radiocarbon Dating and Methods of Low-Level Counting, Monaco: 143–51. Vienna: IAEA.Google Scholar