Search results for "Dating"
showing 10 items of 288 documents
Potential Freshwater Reservoir Effects in a Neolithic Shell Midden at Riņņkalns, Latvia
2014
Riņņukalns is the only known prehistoric shell midden in the eastern Baltic, and is one of the few middens in northern Europe consisting mainly of freshwater mussel shells. Situated on the Salaca River at the outlet of Lake Burtnieks, in northeastern Latvia, the site was originally excavated in the 1870s, and reinvestigated several times over the following decades. A new excavation in 2011 showed that part of the midden remained intact. The new exposure, dated to the later 4th millennium cal BC, yielded rich fishbone and mollusk shell assemblages, herbivore, human and bird bones, and a wide range of artifacts typical of a subsistence economy based on fishing, hunting, and gathering. Human r…
Annual 14C Tree-Ring Data Around 400 AD: Mid- and High-Latitude Records
2019
ABSTRACTTwo tree-ring series, one from a high-latitude pine tree (located in northern Scandinavia) and one from a mid-latitude oak tree (located in eastern Germany) were analyzed for radiocarbon (14C) at annual resolution. The new records cover the calendar date ranges 290–460 AD and 382–486 AD, respectively, overlapping by 79 yr. The series show similar trends as IntCal13. However, some significant deviations around 400 AD are present with lower Δ14C (higher 14C ages). An average offset between the two new series and IntCal13 of about 20 years in conventional 14C age is observed. A latitudinal 14C offset between the tree sites in central and northern Europe, as would be expected due to the…
New tree-ring evidence for the Late Glacial period from the northern pre-Alps in eastern Switzerland
2018
Abstract The rate and magnitude of temperature variability at the transition from the Last Glacial Maximum into the early Holocene represents a natural analog to current and predicted climate change. A limited number of high-resolution proxy archives, however, challenges our understanding of environmental conditions during this period. Here, we present combined dendrochronological and radiocarbon evidence from 253 newly discovered subfossil pine stumps from Zurich, Switzerland. The individual trees reveal ages of 41–506 years and were growing between the Allerod and Preboreal (∼13′900–11′300 cal BP). Together with previously collected pines from this region, this world's best preserved Late…
Luminescence dating of aeolian–coastal events on the Kristianstad plain, SE Sweden
2016
Aeolian–coastal sediments and landforms are excellent palaeoenvironmental archives, but chronological studies of coastal records are scarce in Sweden. In this study, we provide luminescence and radiocarbon ages of aeolian activity and coastal landscape evolution on the Kristianstad plain, SE Sweden, based on the investigations of two foredunes and two inland dunes at Åhus and Vittskövle. Additionally, we do a laboratory intercomparison of five young luminescence samples. The comparison shows a significant age difference most likely due to an instrumental difference. The equivalent dose cannot be determined accurately with the low irradiation times, and therefore, the results obtained from …
The Maya wall paintings from Chajul, Guatemala
2020
The recent renovation of a house in Chajul in western Guatemala has revealed an unparalleled set of wall paintings, most probably from the Colonial period (AD 1524–1821). The iconography of the murals combines pre-Columbian elements with imported European components in a domestic rather than a religious setting, making them a unique example of Colonial-period art. Here, the authors present the results of iconographic, chemical and radiocarbon analyses of the Chajul house paintings. Dating to the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries AD, the paintings may be connected to a revival of the local religious organisation (cofradías) in the context of waning Spanish colonial control.
Dating of the hominid (Homo neanderthalensis) remains accumulation from El Sidrón cave (Piloña, Asturias, North Spain): an example of multi-methodolo…
2010
The age of Neanderthal remains and associated sediments from El Sidrón cave has been obtained through different dating methods (14CAMS, U/TH, OSL, ESR and AAR) and samples (charcoal debris, bone, tooth dentine, stalagmitic flowstone, carbonate-rich sediments, sedimentary quartz grains, tooth enamel and land snail shells). Detrital Th contamination rendered Th/U dating analyses of flowstone unreliable. Recent 14C contamination produced spurious age-values from charcoal samples as well as from inadequately pretreated tooth samples. Most consistent 14C dates are grouped into two series: one between 35 and 40 ka and the other between 48 and 49 ka. Most ESR and AAR samples yielded concordant age…
Late Quaternary coastal uplift of southwestern Sicily, central Mediterranean sea
2021
Abstract Mapping and luminescence aging of raised marine terraces and aeolian ridges along an ∼90 km coastal stretch in southwestern Sicily provide the first quantitative assessment of vertical tectonic deformation in this region, which spans the frontal part of an active thrust belt. We recognized a staircase of eleven terraces and nine related aeolian ridges. The elevation profile of terraces parallel to the coast shows a >90 km long bell-shaped pattern, onto which shorter-wavelength (∼10 km long) undulations are superimposed. Luminescence ages from terraced beach deposits and aeolian sediments constrain the position of paleoshorelines formed during MIS 5e, 7a and 7c, with a maximum uplif…
Earliest evidence of Neolithic collective burials from Eastern Iberia: Radiocarbon dating at the archaeolgoical site of Les Llometes (Alicante, Spain)
2016
AbstractIn the Valencia region of Spain, the dominant use of natural caves for collective burials during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods has been documented. Collective burials are central to the hypothesis about social relationships in Copper Age societies from Iberia, and key to interpreting kinship-based societies. Les Llometes (Alcoi, Alicante) is one of the biggest collective burial sites existing in eastern Iberia. This article presents the direct14C dates on 25 skeletal remains at the site. The results indicate that the site was used as a burial place from the end of the 5th millennium cal BC until the end of the 4th millennium cal BC, and is a first milestone for future …
Dating Late Paleolithic Harpoons from Lake Lubāns, Latvia
2014
Over 3000 prehistoric bone and antler artifacts, collected in the late 1930s from the former lakebed of Lake Lubāns, are held by the National History Museum of Latvia. This collection is remarkable not only as one of the largest known assemblages of bone implements in northern Europe, but also in terms of diversity of forms. The most elaborately worked objects include harpoons, often with two rows of barbs and spade-shaped bases, which are believed to date to the Late Paleolithic, and to be among the oldest organic artifacts ever found in Latvia. Four broken specimens were sampled in 2011 for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating, stable isotope analysis, and taxonomic attribution by Z…
Charcoal-painted images from the French Neolithic Villevenard hypogea: an experimental protocol for radiocarbon dating of conserved and in situ carbo…
2020
A conserved painting removed from a Neolithic collective grave in Marne, France, provided an opportunity for radiocarbon dating to place Les Ronces Hypogeum 21 (Villevenard) into the chronology of that region. Chemical analysis with direct analysis in real time (DART) mass spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) of samples from the painting revealed the presence of two kinds of wax (beeswax and paraffin or microcrystalline wax) that likely were added during the conservation, a drying oil like linseed oil, as well as markers of pine resin that may arise from turpentine or colophony. A new pretreatment protocol of chlorofor…