Prof Christopher Ramsey

Abstract:

Five wooden sculptures from the pre-contact Caribbean, long held in museum collections, are here dated and given a context for the first time. The examples studied were made from dense Guaiacum wood, carved, polished and inlaid with shell fastened with resin. Dating the heartwood, sapwood and resins takes key examples of 'Classic' Taíno art back to the tenth century AD, and suggests that some objects were treasured and refurbished over centuries. The authors discuss the symbolic properties of the wood and the long-lived biographies of some iconic sculptures.

Abstract:

The objective of radiocarbon pretreatment is to eliminate any contaminant carbon from the sample material. Solvent washes and acid-base-acid (ABA) procedures are widely used for this purpose. However, quantitatively analyzing their effectiveness is surprisingly problematic, as it often requires large numbers of 14C measurements or high-precision compositional analysis. The technique presented here involves monitoring the impact of different forms of contamination by measuring their adherence to a non-carbonaceous substrate called Chromosorb®. Firstly, the substrate was used in place of a 14C sample in order to monitor the accrual of carbon contamination during a standard solvent wash and ABA pretreatment. This produced a contamination profile against which modifications to the pretreatment procedure could be compared. Secondly, stocks were prepared of Chromosorb that had been infused with environmental contaminants and with common glues, adhesives, and preservatives. By monitoring the elimination of carbon from these stocks, the effectiveness of different pretreatment procedures could be evaluated and the most problematic of the contaminants for 14C dating could be identified. © 2011 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona.

Abstract:

Calibration is a fundamental stage of the radiocarbon (14C) dating process if one is to derive meaningful calendar ages from samples' 14C measurements. For the first time, the IntCal09 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2009) provided an internationally ratified calibration data set across almost the complete range (0 to 50,000 cal BP) of the 14C timescale. However, only the last 12,550 cal yr of this record are composed of terrestrial data, leaving approximately three quarters of the 14C timescale necessarily calibrated via less secure, marine records (incorporating assumptions pertaining to the temporally variable “marine reservoir effect”). The predominantly annually laminated (varved) sediment profile of Lake Suigetsu, central Japan, offers an ideal opportunity to derive an extended terrestrial record of atmospheric 14C across the entire range of the method, through pairing of 14C measurements of terrestrial plant macrofossil samples (extracted from the sediment) with the independent chronology provided through counting of its annual laminations.This paper presents new data (182 14C determinations) from the upper (largely non-varved) 15 m of the Lake Suigetsu (SG06) sediment strata. These measurements provide evidence of excellent coherence between the Suigetsu 14C data and the IntCal09 calibration curve across the last ~12,000 cal yr (i.e. the portion of IntCal based entirely on terrestrial data). Such agreement demonstrates that terrestrial plant material picked from the Lake Suigetsu sediment provides a reliable archive of atmospheric 14C, and therefore supports the site as being capable of providing a high-resolution extension to the “wholly terrestrial” (i.e. non-reservoir-corrected) calibration curve beyond its present 12,550 cal BP limit.