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A Wiggle-Matched Date for the Copper Age Cemetery at Manerba Del Garda, Northern Italy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Lawrence H Barfield ,
Sturt W Manning ,
Erio Valzolgher  and
Thomas F G Higham
Lawrence H Barfield
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, Arts Building, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom. Sadly, Lawrence H Barfield passed away 2 July 2009
Sturt W Manning
Affiliation:
Department of Classics & Malcolm and Carolyn Wiener Laboratory for Aegean and Near Eastern Dendrochronology, B-48 Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-3201, USA
Erio Valzolgher*
Affiliation:
Ricerche Archeologiche snc/Archäologische Untersuchungen OHG, via Guglielmo Marconi/Guglielmo-Marconi-Strasse 8, I-39042 Bressanone/Brixen (Bolzano/Bozen), Italy
Thomas F G Higham
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

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The cemetery in the Riparo Valtenesi rockshelter at Manerba del Garda in northern Italy is well known for its wooden burial chambers. These chambers are some of the best sources of evidence for 3rd millennium BC collective burial in Europe. To further refine the absolute dating of burial activity at the site (beyond the approximate data provided by a previous series of routine radiocarbon measurements), a charred construction oak timber was sampled from Chamber 133 for 14C dendro wiggle-matching (DWM). We present the results from the DWM analysis, the first of its kind for the Italian Copper Age as a whole, establishing a terminus post quem for construction of Chamber 133 ∼2955–2872 cal BC.

Type
Calibration, Data Analysis, and Statistical Methods
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 52 , Issue 3: 20th Int. Radiocarbon Conference Proceedings , 2010 , pp. 984 - 1001
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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