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Combining archaeological and radiocarbon information: a Bayesian approach to calibration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

C. E. Buck ,
J. B. Kenworthy ,
C. D. Litton  and
A. F. M. Smith
C. E. Buck
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD
J. B. Kenworthy
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD
C. D. Litton
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD
A. F. M. Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, Imperial College, London SW7 2BZ
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Extract

A recent and significant improvement in radiocarbon dating has been the increased ability of the radiocarbon laboratories to provide results combining precision with accuracy. This improvement has been accompanied by increasing recognition that the information must be expressed on the calendar, rather than on the radiocarbon, time-scale. Despite the attempts of Ottaway (1987) and Pearson (1987), archaeologists are not sufficiently aware of the statistical problems involved in the transformation from one scale to the other: ‘Some of the trouble lies in the ignorance of radiocarbon consumers; the many attempts to educate them can have only limited success when radiocarbon study depends on statistical concepts and methods far beyond the average archaeologist’s innumerate grasp’ (Chippindale 1990: 203).

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 65 , Issue 249 , December 1991 , pp. 808 - 821
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1991

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Footnotes

The essential question of how to convert radiocarbon determinations - those physical figures so beguilingly expressed in ‘radiocarbon years before present’which are not years at all - remains open to debate. In this new contribution, an approach is outlined using Bayesian methods, rather than classical statistics.

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