MICADAS: Routine and High-Precision Radiocarbon Dating

Radiocarbon Dating.

High-precision radiocarbon dating and historical biblical archaeology in southern Jordan.

Recent excavations and high-precision radiocarbon dating from the largest Iron Age (IA, ca. 1200-500 BCE) copper production center in the southern Levant demonstrate major smelting activities in the region of biblical Edom (southern Jordan) during the 10th and 9th centuries BCE. Stratified radiocarbon samples and artifacts were recorded with precise digital surveying tools linked to a geographi...

High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia.

The 15 archipelagos of East Polynesia, including New Zealand, Hawaii, and Rapa Nui, were the last habitable places on earth colonized by prehistoric humans. The timing and pattern of this colonization event has been poorly resolved, with chronologies varying by >1000 y, precluding understanding of cultural change and ecological impacts on these pristine ecosystems. In a meta-analysis of 1,434 r...

High-precision Radiocarbon Dating of the Construction Phase of Oakbank Crannog, Loch Tay, Perthshire

Many of the Loch Tay crannogs were built in the Early Iron Age and so calibration of the radiocarbon ages produces very broad calendar age ranges due to the well-documented Hallstatt plateau in the calibration curve. However, the large oak timbers that were used in the construction of some of the crannogs potentially provide a means of improving the precision of the dating through subdividing t...

Radiocarbon Dating of Ground Water

Radiocarbon dating of ground water is used in combination with the primary measurements of classical hydrological and chemical analyses. Radiocarbon dating will produce the best results when it involves multiple measurements or sequential sampling. The most useful data come from these comparisons and not from absolute ages. In the case of multiple measurements, the apparent ages of the ground w...