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Developments in the Calibration and Modeling of Radiocarbon Dates

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Christopher Bronk Ramsey,
Michael Dee,
Sharen Lee,
Takeshi Nakagawa and
Richard A Staff
Christopher Bronk Ramsey
Affiliation:
Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom
Michael Dee
Affiliation:
Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom
Sharen Lee
Affiliation:
Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom
Takeshi Nakagawa
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
Richard A Staff
Affiliation:
Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom
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Abstract

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Calibration is a core element of radiocarbon dating and is undergoing rapid development on a number of different fronts. This is most obvious in the area of 14C archives suitable for calibration purposes, which are now demonstrating much greater coherence over the earlier age range of the technique. Of particular significance to this end is the development of purely terrestrial archives such as those from the Lake Suigetsu sedimentary profile and Kauri tree rings from New Zealand, in addition to the groundwater records from speleothems. Equally important, however, is the development of statistical tools that can be used with, and help develop, such calibration data. In the context of sedimentary deposition, age-depth modeling provides a very useful way to analyze series of measurements from cores, with or without the presence of additional varve information. New methods are under development, making use of model averaging, that generate more robust age models. In addition, all calibration requires a coherent approach to outliers, for both single samples and where entire data sets might be offset relative to the calibration curve. This paper looks at current developments in these areas.

Information

Type
Calibration, Data Analysis, and Statistical Methods
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 52 , Issue 3: 20th Int. Radiocarbon Conference Proceedings , 2010, pp. 953 - 961
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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