The Oxford Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility: Technical Developments in Routine Dating

Current Pretreatment Methods for AMS Radiocarbon Dating at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (Orau)

“…Gillespie et al 1984Gillespie et al , 1986Batten et al 1986a,b;Fowler et al 1986;Hedges et al 1989;Law and Hedges 1989;Bronk Ramsey et al 2004a). The development of a range of techniques for the analysis of bone specimens has been documented: for example, the dating of peptides van Klinken et al 1994), amino acids using HPLC (van Klinken and Mook 1990; van Klinken and Hedges 1995), and the use of ninhydrin (van Klinken and Hedges 1995).…”

“…Particular attention has been paid to contamination issues (e.g. Gillespie and Hedges 1984;Hedges et al 1989;Hedges and van Klinken 1992; Hedges 1995, 1998) and quality control (e.g. van Klinken 1999;Bronk Ramsey et al 2004a;Brock et al 2007).…”

“…In this paper, we summarize the main chemical pretreatment protocols currently used for AMS radiocarbon dating at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, updating the protocols last described by Hedges et al (1989). …”

Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System: Archaeometry Datelist 29

“…Collagen is extracted from bone powder using the continuous flow method described in Law and Hedges (1989). Briefly, bone powder (generally 0.1-0.5 g) is placed into a 9 ml reaction vessel.…”

“…Samples are measured through the NERC-funded ORADS facility, through English Heritage and Historic Scotland, and on a commercial basis. All dates have been achieved by the methods described in Law and Hedges (1989), Hedges et al (1989;. Determinations with OxA numbers greater than 6293 were measured either as graphite (if sufficiently large) or as CO, (Bronk Ramsey and Hedges 1997).…”