Direct dating of a human bone fragment from the Chelechol ra Orrak site (western Micronesia) has yielded one of the earliest dates for Palau thus far. This date compares well with recently collected paleoenvironmental evidence and radiocarbon dates on Babeldaob Island suggesting that settlement of the Palauan archipelago took place much earlier than previously thought.

The management of counting files, the calculation of radiocarbon age, and the creation and maintenance of databases for storage and retrieval of laboratory data are time-consuming and exacting tasks. These routine functions are essential to the successful operation of all 14C dating laboratories. However, since the number of 14C dating laboratories worldwide is rather limited, it is unlikely that a commercial software company will produce a program for use in 14C age calculation and associated data management. We have therefore developed Windows based software to meet some of these needs.

Several authors have claimed that radiocarbon dates in the Ancient Near East are too early. Herein, a hypothesis that might explain this is presented. Marine degassing of “old” carbon (i.e. 14C-deficient C), induced by upwelling of old subsurface water, has been observed, in modern times, to cause century-scale 14C ages in the surface atmosphere. A review of the Mediterranean Sea post-ice-age circulation concludes that the subsurface waters became very old, primarily due to millennia-long stagnation. It is hypothesized that as the stagnation ended, subsurface waters were brought towards the surface, where they degassed old carbon. Additionally, Anatolian dendrochronology is shown to not contradict the hypothesis.

The World Ocean Circulation Experiment, carried out between 1990 and 1997, provided the most comprehensive oceanic survey of radiocarbon to date. Approximately 10,000 samples were collected in the Pacific Ocean by U.S. investigators for both conventional large volume p counting and small volume accelerator mass spectrometry analysis techniques. Results from six cruises are presented. The data quality is as good or better than previous large-scale surveys. The 14C distribution for the entire WOCE Pacific data set is graphically described using mean vertical profiles and sections, and property-property plots.