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Radiocarbon Dates Documenting the Neolithic-Bronze Age Transition in Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Jong Chan Kim  and
Christopher J Bae
Jong Chan Kim
Affiliation:
School of Physics, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, Korea. Email: [email protected]
Christopher J Bae*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai'i, 2424 Maile Way, Saunders Hall 346, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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We report radiocarbon dates for ∼150 archaeological sites in Korea belonging to the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition period. From the present compilation, we find that the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition in Korea started as early as ∼2300 BC and continued over the course of 800–900 yr with peaks representing population increases occurring 2–3 times. Compared with cases in other regions of the world, the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition in Korea was similar in both magnitude and transition time. However, the process in Korea appears to have occurred about 2000 yr later. Further, we find that the attempt to explain the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition in Korea as a migration hypothesis based only on a sudden population increase is not tenable.

Type
Archaeology
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 52 , Issue 2: 20th Int. Radiocarbon Conference Proceedings , 2010 , pp. 483 - 492
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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