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Radiocarbon Dating Cremated Bone: A Case Study Comparing Laboratory Methods

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2019

Helene Agerskov Rose Open the ORCID record for Helene Agerskov Rose [Opens in a new window] ,
John Meadows ,
Sanne W L Palstra ,
Christian Hamann ,
Mathieu Boudin  and
Matthias Huels Open the ORCID record for Matthias Huels [Opens in a new window]
Helene Agerskov Rose*
Affiliation:
Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA), Schleswig-Holstein State Museums Foundation, Schlossinsel 1, Schleswig 24837, Germany
John Meadows
Affiliation:
Center for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA), Schleswig-Holstein State Museums Foundation, Schlossinsel 1, Schleswig 24837, Germany Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel, Leibniz-Labor für Altersbestimmung und Isotopenforschung, Kiel, Germany
Sanne W L Palstra
Affiliation:
University of Groningen, Center for Isotope Research, Groningen, The Netherlands
Christian Hamann
Affiliation:
Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel, Leibniz-Labor für Altersbestimmung und Isotopenforschung, Kiel, Germany
Mathieu Boudin
Affiliation:
Royal Instiute for Cultural Heritage, Laboratory for Radiocarbon Dating, Brussels, Belgium
Matthias Huels
Affiliation:
Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet zu Kiel, Leibniz-Labor für Altersbestimmung und Isotopenforschung, Kiel, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Radiocarbon (14C) results on cremated bone are frequently published in high-ranking journals, but 14C laboratories employ different pretreatment methods as they have divergent perceptions of what sources of contaminants might be present. We found pretreatment protocols to vary significantly between three laboratories (Brussels [RICH], Kiel [KIA], and Groningen [CIO]), which all have a long history of dating cremated bone. We present a case study of 6 sets of replicate dates, to compare laboratory pretreatment protocols, and a further 16 sets of inter-laboratory replicate measurements, which compare specific steps of the conversion and measuring process. The 14C results showed dates to be reproducible between the laboratories and consistent with the expected archaeological chronology. We found that differences in pretreatment, conversion to CO2 and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurement to have no measurable influence on the majority of obtained results, suggesting that any possible diagenesis was probably restricted to the most soluble ≤5% of each sample, as this proportion of the sample mass was removed under all laboratory protocols.

Keywords

comparing laboratory methodscremated boneradiocarbon datingreplicate measurements
Type
Conference Paper
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 61 , Issue 5: Radiocarbon 2018 Conference Proceedings Trondheim, Norway, June 17–22, 2018 Part 1 of 2 , October 2019 , pp. 1581 - 1591
Copyright
© 2019 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 23rd International Radiocarbon Conference, Trondheim, Norway, 17–22 June, 2018

References

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