Estimation of residence time of groundwater, particularly in regions with inadequate surface waters are very important for formulating sustainable groundwater management policies. We developed a technique for extracting dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) quantitatively from water for measuring its 14C contents and presented the analytical details here. We also measured stable carbon isotope ratio (δ13C) in soil CO2 and groundwater DIC to correct the groundwater 14C ages. In addition, 14C in soil CO2 were measured for making necessary correction in the initial activity of the recharging water. The corrected 14C contents in the groundwater samples were used to estimate their residence times employing Lumped Parameter Models (LPM), a set of mathematical models to account for the processes that take place during transport from the recharge to the sampling spots. We present a case study focused on the calculation of radiocarbon ages and residence times for a groundwater sample collected from the campus of Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The study also includes estimations of groundwater residence times using previously measured 14C ages of groundwater samples from Gujarat, India. Various factors controlling the groundwater ages in the LPM and their applicability are discussed.

The research aims to reconstruct the chronology of building the Southwest Church, Umm el-Jimal, Jordan by AMS radiocarbon dating organic inclusions uncovered from the mortars collected from the floor of the church, seat of the apse and the base of the north wall. It sheds light on the major aspects of mortar recipes at the time of their production. Samples were examined macroscopically with magnifying lenses and characterized using archaeometric techniques of optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction. The radiocarbon dates showed that 594–643 AD is the most probable age for flooring and plastering the church and 995–1154 AD is the earliest possible date for its final collapse. The preparatory layers of the church floor were laid on an older one, probably of a yard, and its north wall was raised on an older base, both most probably date to the late fifth–early sixth century AD. The production recipe of the mortars is made from a lime binder and inclusions mainly of organic (charcoal) and inorganic (quartz, grog, volcanics). The mortars have the same recipe regardless their bedding and jointing functions which remained unchanged during the building stages of church complex.

The increase in biobased material usage requires the methods of verification to investigate the actual content of biocarbon in such materials, including liquid fuels. The determination of biocarbon in liquid samples using 14C required adaptation of existing sample preparation methods. In this study, both accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and liquid scintillation counting (LSC) methods were used to determine the content of 14C in six different liquid fuel blends produced from purely bio-based hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and a 14C-free petrodiesel sample (ON/UF-BC). The results obtained for pure petrodiesel provide background values. The results indicate a good agreement between LSC and AMS, and a linear correlation between the 14C measurement results for blended samples and HVO content affirmed the reproducibility between the two methods. The repeatability of AMS results was tested on 10 aliquots of one of the blends, and the results were deemed reproducible.

Researchers increasingly rely on aggregations of radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites as proxies for past human populations. This approach has been critiqued on several grounds, including the assumptions that material is deposited, preserved, and sampled in proportion to past population size. However, various attempts to quantitatively assess the approach suggest there may be some validity in assuming date counts reflect relative population size. To add to this conversation, here we conduct a preliminary analysis coupling estimates of ethnographic population density with late Holocene radiocarbon dates across all counties in California. Results show that counts of late Holocene radiocarbon-dated archaeological sites increase significantly as a function of ethnographic population density. This trend is robust across varying sampling windows over the last 5000 BP. Though the majority of variation in dated-site counts remains unexplained by population density. Outliers reveal how departures from the central trend may be influenced by regional differences in research traditions, development-driven contract work, organic preservation, and landscape taphonomy. Overall, this exercise provides some support for the “dates-as-data” approach and offers insights into the conditions where the underlying assumptions may or may not hold.

Five sites in present-day New York have played important roles in archaeological narratives surrounding the development of settled village life in northeastern North America. Excavated in the mid-twentieth century, the Roundtop, Maxon-Derby, Sackett or Canandaigua, Bates, and Kelso sites include evidence related to the transition from semisedentary settlement-subsistence patterns during the twelfth through fourteenth centuries AD to those associated with fifteenth century and later settled Iroquoian villagers. Radiocarbon dates for each site were obtained early in the development of the method and again following the transition to AMS dating. Here, we present new or recently-published dates for these sites, combined with reliable existing dates in Bayesian models, including in some cases short tree-ring sequenced wiggle-matches on wood charcoal. Our results clarify the timing of each site’s occupation(s), revealing both continuity and discontinuity in the development of longhouse dwellings, sedentism, and the repeated re-use of some site locations over hundreds of years.

The Kastro peninsula constitutes the extension towards the West of Myrina, the Lemnos capital, on the western coast of the island, in the North Aegean Sea. The ongoing research project on rock-cut features and rock-art of this complex site included a five-year (2002–2007) subsurface investigation, during which, among other mobile finds, charcoal and seashell samples were also collected, associated in situ to rock-cut features. Subsequently, in an attempt to bring about information on the dating of the rock-cut site, an investigation based on 14C has also been undertaken. Therefore, the purpose of the present paper is the AMS dating of the unearthed anthropogenic deposits and the calculation of the regional marine reservoir effect during the end of the Late Bronze Age. Our results show that the age of the deposits is spanning from the 13th century BC till the 6th century AD. Moreover, the 14C ages of two pairs of charcoal-seashell samples showed that the mean marine reservoir age R(t) in this region from the 13th to the 10th centuries BC is 175 ± 59 14C yrs and the mean local sea surface reservoir deviation ΔR is found to be –288 ± 108 14C yrs (within 1σ).

Dates from recently excavated Gangetic site of Sakas in Bihar, India, place it at ca.1800–1100 BC. The ceramic and lithic chronologies have been interpreted as Early Farming, Transitional and Chalcolithic/Developed Farming in date. However, depending on where in the Ganges Plains is studied, the time frame of Early, Developed and Advanced Farming periods varies widely, from 7th millennium to 2nd millennium BC and beyond, making the chronological framing of absolute dates within a regional scheme highly complex. In this paper we report the new radiocarbon results from Sakas and note how while these are critical for cementing the absolute dating of the site, until such time as a more stable periodization linked not only to relative and absolute dates but also human lifeways within the different zones of the Ganges plains is created, there remains difficulties in understanding how Sakas and other sites of similar date fit into the changing social, cultural and economic systems in this region.

The intensity of changes in the population dynamics of the Early Neolithic (ca. 6250–5300 cal BC) communities in the Central Balkans was addressed by estimating the growth rate values. The Bayesian approach (Crema and Shoda 2021) of estimating intrinsic growth rates by fitting different models of population growth was applied to radiocarbon dates from the Early Neolithic sites in Serbia. We explored two possible episodes of population growth based on the results of the population dynamics reconstruction using the summed calibrated radiocarbon probability distributions (SPD) method. The results have shown that, within the first episode of growth, the intrinsic growth rate mean values are higher than the estimated continental average (between 1% and 2%). The results indicate a sudden and fast rise in population size, possibly due to the influx of the new population settling in the region at the beginning of the Neolithic. Lower values for the second episode could indicate more gradual population growth due to the mechanisms associated with the Neolithic Demographic Transition and the rise in fertility.

Based on the study of the primary documentation related to the excavations carried out by Eurico Miller in the 1970s at Abrigo do Sol, Mato Grosso (Brazil), we propose a new reading of the stratigraphic and chronological information obtained from this rock shelter. Despite the apparent incongruity in the chrono-stratigraphic distribution of published dates, a detailed examination of the stratigraphy and field notes allowed us to identify a chronometric sequence with regular distribution between the Middle Holocene and the Late Pleistocene periods for the Abrigo do Sol site. We present here the original documents related to radiocarbon dating and their analysis. We finally show the implications of this study for understanding this site and the discussions related to the ancient settlements of the Amazon forest.

This paper discusses the approach used to identify the most relevant chronological information on the historic development of the abandoned site of AlUla Old Town, in the northwest of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Western Asia). The approach is based on the use of the radiocarbon method to date earth mortars samples and soil layers used to create the constructive sequence of some buildings and, in turn, the chronological evolution of the site. Eleven samples of organic material (i.e., charcoal and vegetable fibers) were carefully removed from mortar samples and soil levels from six buildings and structures in the northern and southern areas of the town. Buildings and soil layers were chosen for their stratigraphic relevance and conservation conditions, based on an initial archaeological analysis of both, buildings and underground structures. Laboratory-based mortar analysis led to the characterization of the mortar’s inorganic fraction, and to the isolation of the organic material for the radiocarbon dating. Results from the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) laboratory provides evidence of a Late Mamluk/Early Ottoman constructive phase (i.e., 15th–17th c. AD) of the Old Town that was only partially known until very recently. Furthermore, the results allowed the identification of an Ottoman phase (i.e., 17th–19th c. AD) during which most of the buildings and structures were rebuilt, and of a Late Ottoman phase (i.e., 19th–20th c. AD) representing the most recent interventions before the end of the Ottoman occupation of the area.

Radiocarbon measurements on the carbonaceous aerosol fractions are an effective tool for aerosol source apportionment. For these measurements, a new sample preparation line (MISSMARPLE: MIlan Small-SaMple Automated Radiocarbon Preparation LinE for atmospheric aerosol) was built in Milan (Italy). MISSMARPLE can separate different carbon fractions (i.e. total carbon (TC), elemental carbon (EC)), automates the sample combustion processes and the CO2 isolation in the “combustion line”, and was designed to handle small samples, of about 50 μg carbon. The CO2 obtained in the combustion line is then reduced to graphite in the graphitization line for subsequent accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) analysis at the INFN-LABEC in Sesto Fiorentino (Italy). MISSMARPLE was tested for reproducibility of 14C/12C ratio in primary standard samples, for background contamination by the analysis of blank samples (graphite with zero percent Modern Carbon (pMC)), and for accuracy by the analysis of IAEA-C7 for pMC(TC) and NIST RM8785 for pMC(EC) used as secondary standards. Measurements were carried out in different AMS runs. Reproducibility of 14C/12C was within 1.2%; blank values were down to 2.2 ± 0.2 pMC in the latest AMS run, and both IAEA-C7 and NIST RM8785 measurements were within 1σ with the reference value (but for one IAEA-C7 sample within 2.3σ). These results point to MISSMARPLE as a new, valuable tool for aerosol sample preparation for radiocarbon measurements to be exploited not only on traditional 24-h samples but also when small carbon quantities are available (e.g. collected at remote sites or with high temporal resolution).

The Fertile Crescent of Southwest Asia is considered one of the main centers of the first Neolithization worldwide. However, the dating and processes of its spread to neighboring regions have yet to be studied. This study reports new chronological data from the Fars highlands, southeast of the Fertile Crescent. Although the Pottery Neolithic in Fars has long been believed to have started in the late 7th millennium BC, recent excavations at Tepe Rahmatabad have suggested a date half a millennium earlier, raising controversy. Our data from Tol-e Sangi, a stratified site with Pre-Pottery (PPN) and Pottery Neolithic (PN) cultural deposits, support the advent of the Pottery Neolithic at the beginning of the 7th millennium BC. This suggests that despite the late arrival of the food production economy in the Fars highlands, which is dated from the mid-8th millennium BC, subsequent cultural development followed a path similar to that of the eastern wing of the Fertile Crescent.

The spread of trapeze industries (the creation of trapeze-shaped flint tips) during Late Mesolithic is one of the most disruptive phenomena of technological change documented in the European Prehistory. Understanding the chronological patterns of this process requires (i) a critical evaluation of stratigraphic relationship between trapeze assemblages and radiocarbon samples, and (ii) considering different levels of chronological uncertainty according to the inbuilt age of the samples and the calibration process. In this paper, we critically evaluate and analyze the radiocarbon record of the first trapeze industries in the Iberian Peninsula. A dataset of 181 radiocarbon dates from 67 sites dated to 8800–8200 cal BP was collected and evaluated following a strict data quality control protocol, from which 135 dates of 53 sites were retained and classified according to a reliability index. Then, three different phase Bayesian chronological models were created to estimate the duration of the first spread of trapezes across Iberia, considering different levels of chrono-stratigraphic resolution. We find that trapeze industries appeared in the eastern half of Iberia, over an area of 330,000 km2 between 8505–8390 and 8425–8338 cal BP, spanning 0–85 yr (95.4% CI). When the oldest evidence of trapezes from Portugal are considered, the probability distribution expands (8943–8457 and 8686–7688 cal BP), due to the chronological uncertainty of human samples with marine diet and regional ΔR values applied. For the eastern half of Iberia, the current evidence indicates a very rapid spread of trapeze industries initiated in the Central-Western Pyrenees, suggesting cultural diffusion within Mesolithic social networks as the main driving mechanism.

We present an annual-resolution, millennium-long tree-ring chronology for northern Japan. The chronology is based on 5309 measurements of tree-ring δ18O from 37 samples of Hiba arbor-vitae (Thujopsis dolabrata var. hondae). Although the exact geographical origin of 27 of the samples is unknown because they were extracted from excavated archaeological material, pattern matching of the tree-ring δ18O variations was robust among all 37 samples. The floating chronology constructed using all samples was cross-dated against a previously published δ18O chronology from central Japan, yielding a correlation coefficient of 0.26 (t = 9.0; p < 0.01), resulting in a temporal coverage of 417–1595 CE (i.e., 1179 yrs). The global 14C spike event at 774–775 CE was clearly recorded in the annual 14C data, which provides independent support for the dating of tree rings using oxygen isotopes. Furthermore, this δ18O chronology from northern Japan was used to successfully cross-date a wood sample buried during the “Millennium Eruption” of Baitoushan, which is located on the border between China and North Korea.

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, recently installed a MIni CArbon DAting System (MICADAS) with a gas interface system (GIS) for determining the 14C content of CO2 gas released by the acid dissolution of biogenic carbonates. We compare 48 paired graphite, GIS, and direct carbonate 14C determinations of individual mollusk shells and echinoid tests. GIS sample sizes ranged between 0.5 and 1.5 mg and span 0.1 to 45.1 ka BP (n = 42). A reduced major axis regression shows a strong relationship between GIS and graphite percent Modern Carbon (pMC) values (m = 1.011; 95% CI [0.997–1.023], R2 = 0.999) that is superior to the relationship between the direct carbonate and graphite values (m = 0.978; 95% CI [0.959-0.999], R2 = 0.997). Sixty percent of GIS pMC values are within ±0.5 pMC of their graphite counterparts, compared to 26% of direct carbonate pMC values. The precision of GIS analyses is approximately ±70 14C yrs to 6.5 ka BP and decreases to approximately ±130 14C yrs at 12.5 ka BP. This precision is on par with direct carbonate and is approximately five times larger than for graphite. Six Plio-Pleistocene mollusk and echinoid samples yield finite ages when analyzed as direct carbonate but yield non-finite ages when analyzed as graphite or as GIS. Our results show that GIS 14C dating of biogenic carbonates is preferable to direct carbonate 14C dating and is an efficient alternative to standard graphite 14C dating when the precision of graphite 14C dating is not required.

A new series of 22 radiocarbon dates provides new insights on the origin and distribution of the Early Trypillian archaeological culture in modern-day Moldova and Ukraine. The paper presents data from the sites of preceding groups (5 dates), highlighting gaps in the agricultural settlement of the region, dates related to the Early Trypillia directly (14 dates) and dates from the ceramic hunter-gatherers’ sites that yielded some Early Trypillian pottery (3 dates). The results indicate that the expansion of Early Trypillia into Moldovan and Ukrainian forest-steppe took place during 47–45th centuries BCE and it was a relatively fast colonization likely spanning only 3–5 generations.

The Brazil Nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa, Lecythidaceae) is a species of considerable historical, economic and ecological importance in South America. Radiocarbon dating indicates some individuals can live from hundreds to more than 1000 years, which means they have the potential to reconstruct deep time growth patterns and their relationship to anthropogenic management or climate change from pre-colonial to present times. However, age estimates vary considerably amongst trees dated with different methods (i.e. tree-ring analysis, radiocarbon-dating, and repeated diameter measurements). Here we analyze living Brazil Nut trees growing in four distinct regions across the Brazilian Amazon using two dating methods: tree-ring counting and radiocarbon dating. Our results show that the congruence between the two methods varies amongst regions, and the highest congruence is found at the site of Tefé, Amazonas. This region features archaeological sites with anthropogenic Terra Preta soils, and is known for its long-term human forest management. This management likely enhanced light and nutrient availability, which possibly enabled the trees to grow at higher rates and form annual rings. Our findings highlight the need for better understanding of the growth of Brazil Nut trees for ecological research, but also the potential of dendrochronology for exploring climate change and human-forest interactions in the Amazon Basin.

This study aims to determine the chronological sequence of the collective burials in the hypogea of the prehistoric cemetery of La Beleña (Cabra, Córdoba) through Bayesian analyses of 14C dates obtained from human remains. The data from this site are not only key to grasping the phenomenon of the introduction and spread of hypogea throughout the western Mediterranean, but to gain insight into multi-stage funerary practices during the Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic. The dataset comprises 14C dates of 71 of the 79 individuals placed in five of La Beleña’s six hypogea. The findings suggest: (i) La Beleña is one of the oldest assemblages of hypogea in Iberia, (ii) that this type of collective burial spread rapidly throughout the western Mediterranean area, (iii) that La Beleña is marked by two main phases of funerary activity interspersed by brief burial surges, (iv) funerary intensity at La Beleña increased between cal BC 3400–2900 (2σ), and (v) the cemetery saw a very brief surge of burials potentially related to a catastrophic event. The results of this analysis thus shed light on the little-known chronological sequence of prehistoric hypogea or rock-cut tombs in Iberia, their spread, and their relation to other Late Neolithic collective burials in western Europe.

In the hyperarid eastern Sahara, west of the Nile River in Egypt, areas with vegetated eolian mounds have attracted people and animals because of shallow groundwater that at times of high water tables may be reached by hand digging shallow wells. An eolian phreatophytic mound with a living arak bush (Silvadora persica L.) on top, one of three known from this region of SW Egypt, provided a stratigraphic record of its growth. The geochronology of the mounds aggradation and that of a nearby tarfa mound (Tamarix nilatica Bunge) was determined by radiocarbon dating plant macrofossils within the stratigraphic succession. Eolian aggradation of the mound postdates deflation that eroded playa sediments of the Neolithic pluvial that ended ca. 5000 BP and appears to be due to a resurgence of the shallow aquifer. Subsequent deflation of the mounds is apparently due to post-1500 BP aridity. Regional vegetation is described in the Appendix I.