Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:35:43.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Diet-Derived Variations in Radiocarbon and Stable Isotopes: A Case Study from Shag River Mouth, New Zealand

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Thomas Higham ,
Atholl Anderson ,
Christopher Bronk Ramsey  and
Christine Tompkins
Thomas Higham
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QJ, United Kingdom
Atholl Anderson
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
Christopher Bronk Ramsey
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QJ, United Kingdom
Christine Tompkins
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QJ, United Kingdom
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) determinations of rat bones from natural and cultural sites in New Zealand have produced ages at odds with the accepted date for early human settlement by over 1000 yr. Since rats are a human commensal, this implies either an earlier visitation by people or problems with the reliability of the AMS determinations. One explanation for the extreme ages is dietary variation involving movement of depleted radiocarbon through dietary food chains to rats. To investigate this, we 14C dated fauna from the previously well-dated site of Shag River Mouth. The faunal remains were of species that consumed carbon derived from a variety of environments within the orbit of the site, including the estuary, river, land, and sea. The 14C results showed a wide range in age among estuarine and freshwater species. Terrestrial and marine organisms produced ages within expectations. We also found differences between bone dated using the Oxford ultrafiltration method and those treated using the filtered gelatin method. This implies that contamination could also be of greater importance than previously thought.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , 2005 , pp. 367 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

Anderson, AJ. 1991. The chronology of colonisation in New Zealand. Antiquity 65:767–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, AJ. 1996. Was Rattus exulans in New Zealand 2000 years ago? AMS radiocarbon ages from Shag River Mouth. Archaeology in Oceania 31:178–84.Google Scholar
Anderson, AJ. 2000. Differential reliability of 14C AMS ages of Rattus exulans bone gelatin in South Pacific prehistory. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 30:243–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, AJ. 2004. The age disconformity in AMS radiocarbon results on Rattus exulans bone. New Zealand Journal of Archaeology 24(2002):149–56.Google Scholar
Anderson, AJ, Allingham, BJ, Smith, IWG, editors. 1996a. Shag River Mouth: The Archaeology of an Early Southern Maori Village. Research Papers in Archaeology and Natural History 27. Canberra: Australian National University. 294 p.Google Scholar
Anderson, AJ, Smith, IWG, Higham, TFG. 1996b. Radiocarbon chronology. In: Anderson, AJ, Allingham, BJ, Smith, IWG, editors. Shag River Mouth: The Archaeology of an Early Southern Maori Village. Research Papers in Archaeology and Natural History 27. Canberra: Australian National University. p 60–9.Google Scholar
Beavan-Athfield, N, Sparks, RJ. 2001a. Dating of Rattus exulans and bird bone from Pleasant River (Otago, New Zealand): radiocarbon anomalies from diet. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 31(4):801–9.Google Scholar
Beavan Athfield, NR, McFadgen, BG, Sparks, RJ. 1999. Reliability of bone gelatin AMS dating: Rattus exulans and marine shell radiocarbon dates from Pauatahanui midden sites in Wellington, New Zealand. Radiocarbon 41(2):119–26.Google Scholar
Beavan-Athfield, N, Sparks, RJ. 2001b. Dating of Rattus exulans bone from Pleasant River (Otago, New Zealand): testing the effect of burial contamination. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 31(4):795–800.Google Scholar
Bonsall, C, Cook, G, Hedges, REM, Higham, TFG, Pickard, C, Radovanović, I. 2004. Radiocarbon and stable isotope evidence of dietary change from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages in the Iron Gates: new results from Lepenski Vir. Radiocarbon 46(1):293–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2001. Development of the radiocarbon calibration program OxCal. Radiocarbon 43(2A):355–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, Hedges, REM. 1999. Hybrid ion sources: radiocarbon measurements from microgram to milligram. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B 123:539–45.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, Pettitt, PB, Hedges, REM, Hodgins, GWL, Owen, DC. 2000. Radiocarbon dates from the Oxford AMS system: Archaeometry datelist 30. Archaeometry 42:459–79.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, Higham, TFG, Bowles, A, Hedges, R. 2004. Improvements to the pretreatment of bone at Oxford. Radiocarbon 46(1):155–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, GT, Bonsall, C, Hedges, REM, McSweeney, K, Boroneant, V, Pettitt, PB. 2001. A freshwater diet-derived 14C reservoir effect at the Stone Age sites in the Iron Gates gorge. Radiocarbon 43(2A):453–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coplen, TB. 1994. Reporting of stable hydrogen, carbon and oxygen isotopic abundances. Pure and Applied Chemistry 66:273–6.Google Scholar
DeNiro, MJ, Weiner, S. 1988. Chemical, enzymatic and spectroscopic characterisation of “collagen” and other organic fractions from prehistoric bones. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 52:2197–206.Google Scholar
Higham, TFG. 1993. Radiocarbon dating the prehistory of New Zealand [unpublished D.Phil dissertation]. Hamilton, New Zealand: University of Waikato.Google Scholar
Higham, TFG, Hogg, AG. 1997. Evidence for late Polynesian colonization of New Zealand: University of Waikato radiocarbon measurements. Radiocarbon 39(2):149–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higham, TFG, Petchey, FP. 2000. On the reliability of rat bone for dating in New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 30(4):399–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higham, TFG, Anderson, AJ, Jacomb, C. 1999. Dating the first New Zealanders: the chronology of Wairau Bar. Antiquity 73:420–27.Google Scholar
Higham, TFG, Bronk Ramsey, C, Petchey, FJ, Tompkins, C, Taylor, M. 2004a. New AMS radiocarbon determinations from Kokohuia, New Zealand. In: Higham, T, Bronk Ramsey, C, Owen, C, editors. 14 C and Archaeology, Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium, Oxford 2002. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Oxford University School of Archaeology Monograph 62. p 135–51.Google Scholar
Higham, TFG, Hedges, REM, Anderson, AJ, Bronk Ramsey, C, Fankhauser, B. 2004b. Problems associated with the AMS dating of small bone samples: the question of the arrival of Polynesian rats to New Zealand. Radiocarbon 46(1):207–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holdaway, RN. 1996. Arrival of rats in New Zealand. Nature 384:225–6.Google Scholar
Holdaway, RN. 1999. A spatio-temporal model for the invasion of the New Zealand archipelago by the Pacific rat Rattus exulans. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 29(2):91–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lanting, JN, van der Plicht, J. 1998. Reservoir effects and apparent 14C ages. Journal of Irish Archaeology 9:151–65.Google Scholar
McCormac, FG, Reimer, PJ, Hogg, AG, Higham, TFG, Baillie, MGL, Palmer, JG, Stuiver, M. 2002. Calibration of the radiocarbon time scale for the Southern Hemisphere: AD 1850–950. Radiocarbon 44(3):641–51.Google Scholar
Morton, J, Miller, M. 1968. The New Zealand Sea Shore. London: Collins. 638 p.Google Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Reimer, RW. 2001. A marine reservoir correction database and on-line interface. Radiocarbon 43(2A):461–3.Google Scholar
Smith, IWG, Anderson, AJ. 1998. Radiocarbon dates from archaeological rat bones: the Pleasant River case. Archaeology in Oceania 33:88–91.Google Scholar
Stuart, AJ, Kosintsev, PA, Higham, TFG, Lister, AM. 2004. Pleistocene to Holocene extinction dynamics in giant deer and woolly mammoth. Nature 431:684–9.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ, Braziunas, TF. 1998. High-precision radiocarbon age calibration for terrestrial and marine samples. Radiocarbon 40(3):1127–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Klinken, GJ. 1999. Bone collagen quality indicators for palaeodietary and radiocarbon measurements. Journal of Archaeological Science 26:687–95.Google Scholar