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NEW AMS 14C DATES OF A MULTICULTURAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE FROM THE PALEO-DELTAIC REGION OF WEST BENGAL, INDIA: CULTURAL AND GEO-ARCHAEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2021

Nabanita Naskar ,
Kaushik Gangopadhyay Open the ORCID record for Kaushik Gangopadhyay [Opens in a new window] ,
Susanta Lahiri ,
Punarbasu Chaudhuri ,
Rajveer Sharma ,
Pankaj Kumar ,
Sunil Ojha ,
Sundeep Chopra  and
Ahana Ghosh
Nabanita Naskar
Affiliation:
Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, 1/AF, Bidhannagar, Kolkata700064, India
Kaushik Gangopadhyay*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Calcutta, 1 Reformatory Street, Kolkata700027, India
Susanta Lahiri
Affiliation:
Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, 1/AF, Bidhannagar, Kolkata700064, India Homi Bhabha National Institute, Mumbai, India
Punarbasu Chaudhuri
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Science, University of Calcutta, 35 Ballygunge Circular Road, Kolkata700019, India
Rajveer Sharma
Affiliation:
Inter-University Accelerator Centre, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi, Delhi 110067, India
Pankaj Kumar
Affiliation:
Inter-University Accelerator Centre, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi, Delhi 110067, India
Sunil Ojha
Affiliation:
Inter-University Accelerator Centre, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi, Delhi 110067, India
Sundeep Chopra
Affiliation:
Inter-University Accelerator Centre, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi, Delhi 110067, India
Ahana Ghosh
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities and Social Science, IIT, Gandhinagar, India
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study is on the absolute age dating of a multicultural site of Erenda, East Medinipur district, in coastal West Bengal, India. Charcoal samples were collected and measured using the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) facility at the Inter-University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi, India. These samples were collected from secured stratigraphic context of two excavated trenches. A careful collection of samples from two trenches provided us with the first calendar dates, 950 BCE and 1979 BCE, of protohistoric sites in coastal West Bengal. These calibrated calendar dates not only have wider significance in terms of archaeology but also methodological implications to understand the relevance of application of AMS from the dynamic coastal landscape in the humid tropics during the late Holocene period.

Keywords

accelerator mass spectrometrycharcoalprotohistoric siteradiocarbon dating
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 63 , Issue 6 , December 2021 , pp. 1645 - 1655
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press for the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona

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