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Radiocarbon Dating of Ostrich Eggshells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Jürgen C Freundlich ,
Rudolph Kuper ,
Peter Breunig  and
Hans-Georg Bertram
Jürgen C Freundlich
Affiliation:
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
Rudolph Kuper
Affiliation:
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
Peter Breunig
Affiliation:
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
Hans-Georg Bertram
Affiliation:
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
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Abstract

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Unlike wood charcoal, as found admixed to other cultural remains, ostrich eggshells can be of more direct significance in 14C dating, especially if they were processed to form, eg, eggshell beads. Normally the time span between laying the egg and working the shell beads is short enough to be negligible for 14C dating purposes. Another advantage of eggshell dating is that the carbonate of the shell seems to keep exceptionally well over the millennia, whereas, especially in surface sites in a desert environment, organic material such as wood, charcoal or bone protein tends to decompose. With few comparative test samples, we thought ostrich egg samples would yield 14C dates somewhat too young. The deviation is, however, balanced by performing 13C analyses and a correction for isotope fractionation of ca 350yr.

Type
IV. Applications
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 31 , Issue 3: June 20-25, 1988 Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia , 1989 , pp. 1030 - 1034
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

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