Accurate Dating of Organic Deposits by AMS <sup>14</sup>C Measurement of Macrofossils

Törnqvist, Torbjörn E.; Jong, A.F.M. de; Oosterbaan, Wilma A.; Borg, Klaas van der

doi:10.1017/s0033822200063840

Cited by 160 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…In another study, however, N. lutea showed a full hardwater effect of about 500 years, while the white water lily Nymphaea alba had a terrestrial radiocarbon age [57].…”

Section: Aquatic Plantsmentioning

confidence: 88%

The freshwater reservoir effect in radiocarbon dating

2013

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The freshwater reservoir effect can result in anomalously old radiocarbon ages of samples from lakes and rivers. This includes the bones of people whose subsistence was based on freshwater fish, and pottery in which fish was cooked. Water rich in dissolved ancient calcium carbonates, commonly known as hard water, is the most common reason for the freshwater reservoir effect. It is therefore also called hardwater effect. Although it has been known for more than 60 years, it is still less well-recognized by archaeologists than the marine reservoir effect. The aim of this study is to examine the order of magnitude and degree of variability of the freshwater reservoir effect over short and long timescales. Radiocarbon dating of recent water samples, aquatic plants, and animals, shows that age differences of up to 2000 14 C years can occur within one river. The freshwater reservoir effect has also implications for radiocarbon dating of Mesolithic pottery from inland sites of the Ertebølle culture in Northern Germany. The surprisingly old ages of the earliest pottery most probably are caused by a freshwater reservoir effect. In a sediment core from the Limfjord, northern Denmark, the impact of the freshwater reservoir effect on radiocarbon dating in an estuarine environment is examined. Here, freshwater influence causes reservoir ages to vary between 250 and 700 14 C years during the period 5400 BC -AD 700. The examples in this study show clearly that the freshwater reservoir effect can seriously corrupt radiocarbon dating at inland sites. Reservoir effects should therefore be considered whenever food remains on pottery or the bones of omnivores are radiocarbon dated -irrespective of the site's distance to the coast.

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“…In another study, however, N. lutea showed a full hardwater effect of about 500 years, while the white water lily Nymphaea alba had a terrestrial radiocarbon age [57].…”

Section: Aquatic Plantsmentioning

confidence: 88%

The freshwater reservoir effect in radiocarbon dating

2013

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“…In the Northern Hemisphere, late Quaternary chronologies are commonly constructed using AMS 14 C dated plant macrofossils because they are generally argued to provide the most reliable chronology (MacDonald et al 1991;Törnqvist et al 1992;Snyder et al 1994;Birks and Birks 2000;Hatté and Jull 2007). Although terrestrial macrofossils are often relatively abundant and well preserved in a variety of site types, they are still potentially subject to a range of complications that include reworking, movement of dissolved organic carbon, contamination by modern carbon due to inappropriate storage and analysis, and potentially, measurement effects relating to small sample sizes (Wohlfarth et al 1998;Turney et al 2000;Nilsson et al 2001;Oswald et al 2005;Hatté and Jull 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

Haberle¹,

Stevenson²,

Prebble³

2010

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terra australis 32Terra Australis reports the results of archaeological and related research within the south and east of Asia, though mainly Australia, New Guinea and island Melanesia -lands that remained terra australis incognita to generations of prehistorians. Its subject is the settlement of the diverse environments in this isolated quarter of the globe by peoples who have maintained their discrete and traditional ways of life into the recent recorded or remembered past and at times into the observable present.Since the beginning of the series, the basic colour on the spine and cover has distinguished the regional distribution of topics as follows: ochre for Australia, green for New Guinea, red for South-East Asia and blue for the Pacific Islands. From 2001, issues with a gold spine will include conference proceedings, edited papers and monographs which in topic or desired format do not fit easily within the original arrangements. All volumes are numbered within the same series. Copyright of the text remains with the contributors/authors, 2009. This book is copyright in all countries subscribing to the Berne convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. Among saltbush greyer than seaweed we boardwalk the yeasting waves of the old golden-perch pond. List of volumes in Terra AustralisRabbit dung dots a lake bottom dry since their coming -only once, last century, after seven inches of rain a farmer had to rescue his sheep by boat.The roo bounces down-slope, a brown branch crackling.The professor's eye, noting the local runoff and what the westerlies do, observes seas that rush in and out of a continent's middle, salt lakes spreading and emptying, hills pimpling up and down with cartoon-like speed, or gullying themselves into extinction, rainforests and deserts zipping back and forth like Tom and Jerry. A human mouse plague swiftly swarms, perhaps soon gone.Impermanent planet. Impermanent surface. All under air and water. The lunette is a wave, a dumper of sand, a collapsing tower in the mad rabbit years when its top blew off and old bones winked through, with a vault's worth of fine stone cores.Once so simply mislaid in sand, now so obligingly sluiced out to the un-subincised world that smiles at stone knives. terra australis 32Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes v You might as well offer your table knife to a carpenter.Cane grass and the Dreamtime's stone fight the eroding rivulets together. In today's rare downpour each lost core, or blunted scraper crowns some tiny eroding hillock, plops its anchor in the dissolving silts.The bettong whose skin took off the stone tool's edge has vanished -sacrifice to future fertility.Through the softening soil Homo sapiens's skeleton bumps up like a carp's back.Waits for the wind to shave it off in pieces.A D-section and a ti...

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“…The new dates are AMS dates of selected botanical macroremains, which are generally more accurate than conventional dates of bulk peat samples (Törnqvist et al, 1992), such as the previous dates from the upper IJssel floodplain. Also, the new dates can be expected to relate closer to beginning IJssel overbank sedimentation, because only pure, intact peat directly beneath gradual peat-clay transitions was sampled.…”

Section: Interpretation Of the New Radiocarbon Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Netherlands Journal of Geosciences -Geologie en Mijnbouw | 87 -4 | 2008 remains were selected for radiocarbon age determination (for the selection procedure of macroremains, see Törnqvist et al, 1992). Our sample WAP-I consisted of seeds and fruits of Alisma plantago-aquatica, Carex, and Typha from a 1-cm-thick slice of a 3.5-cm-wide core.…”

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confidence: 99%

The age and origin of the Gelderse IJssel

Makaske

Maas

Smeerdijk³

2008

Netherlands Journal of Geosciences

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The Gelderse IJssel is the third major distributary of the Rhine in the Netherlands and diverts on average ~15% of the Rhine discharge northward.Historic trading cities are located on the Gelderse IJssel and flourished in the late Middle Ages. Little is known about this river in the early Middle Ages and before, and there is considerable debate on the age and origin of the Gelderse IJssel as a Rhine distributary. A small river draining the surrounding Pleistocene uplands must have been present in the IJssel valley during most of the Holocene, but very diverse opinions exist as to when this local river became connected to the Rhine system (and thereby to a vast hinterland), and whether this was human induced or a natural process. We collected new AMS radiocarbon evidence on the timing of beginning overbank sedimentation along the lower reach of the Gelderse IJssel. Our data indicate onset of overbank sedimentation at about 950 AD in this reach. We attribute this environmental change to the establishment of a connection between the precursor of the IJssel and the Rhine system by avulsion. Analysis of previous conventional radiocarbon dates from the upper IJssel floodplain yields that this avulsion may have started ~600 AD. Our results contradict earlier suppositions, based on interpretation of archaeological data and historical accounts, that the Gelderse IJssel is much older and originated as a canal, dug under supervision of the Roman general Drusus.

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Accurate Dating of Organic Deposits by AMS ¹⁴C Measurement of Macrofossils

Cited by 160 publications

References 27 publications

The freshwater reservoir effect in radiocarbon dating

The freshwater reservoir effect in radiocarbon dating

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

The age and origin of the Gelderse IJssel

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Accurate Dating of Organic Deposits by AMS 14C Measurement of Macrofossils

Cited by 160 publications

References 27 publications

The freshwater reservoir effect in radiocarbon dating

The freshwater reservoir effect in radiocarbon dating

Altered Ecologies: Fire, climate and human influence on terrestrial landscapes: Terra Australis 32

The age and origin of the Gelderse IJssel

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Accurate Dating of Organic Deposits by AMS ¹⁴C Measurement of Macrofossils