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Bell Beakers in Spain and Portugal: working with radiocarbon dates in the 3rd millennium BC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Richard J. Harrison*
Affiliation:
Department of Classics arid Archacology, University of Bristol, 11 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 ITH

Extract

The recommended Belfast/Seattle radiocarbon calibration (Pearson 1987) coming into common use gives us ‘good’ portions, where the calibration curve has a shape that aids in refining dates, and ‘sloughs of despond’ - the periods when the shape of the curve is less helpful. Two deep sloughs arefound in the last few centuries ncand in the 3rd millennium BC. Here, a series of new determinations are presented for Bell Beakers in Spain, falling in the 3rd-millennium slough, and it is shown what can and cannot be learnt from these and their calibration.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1988

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