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The Tree-Ring Calibration of Radiocarbon: An Archaeological Evaluation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2016

Colin Renfrew
Colin Renfrew
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

It is now nearly twenty years since the first radiocarbon dates for the neolithic cultures of Europe astonished and perplexed prehistoric archaeologists by falling a millennium earlier than the existing chronologies had suggested. Since that time most (but not all) archaeologists have become reconciled to radiocarbon dating, and to a chronology for Europe based, at least for the neolithic period, on the radiocarbon dates which have become so widely accepted as now to be conventional.

But a second radiocarbon revolution is now taking place. The calibration of radiocarbon by tree-ring dating indicates that the now conventional radiocarbon dates are not early enough. Dates for the neolithic, and this time for the early bronze age also, will have to be set earlier by several centuries. The consequences of this second revolution for the picture we have of prehistoric Europe are in many ways more radical than those of the first. For this reason, perhaps, there has been a marked reluctance among some archaeologists to face the consequences of the new calibration, although an emerging concensus of opinion among botanists and physicists seems to favour it. The present article sets out to identify the three principal points of difference between the conventional chronology and that suggested by the tree-ring calibration of radiocarbon. It is argued that on independent archaeological evidence the new, calibrated, chronology can be seen to yield a plausible and coherent general picture. While many problems have yet to be clarified, there seems no reason why the new dating should not be welcomed as offering a stimulatingly fresh view of the prehistory of Europe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 36 , December 1970 , pp. 280 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1970

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