A NEW DIRECT RADIOCARBON AMS DATE FOR AN UPPER PALAEOLITHIC HUMAN BONE FROM SIBERIA

Abstract

A new AMS radiocarbon date has been obtained from a Siberian human bone sample taken directly from a cranial fragment. The specimen comes from the north‐east Siberian site of Pokrovka 2 (55019′46.30″N, 92026′48.80″E). The remains consist of the anterior portion of the cranium or the superior part of the face; that is, the forehead and the roof of the eye sockets. Sadly, indifferent features of the frontal bone do not allow a confident diagnosis of the sex of the individual. The evidence suggests, however, that the remains are probably those of a young adult (teenager) and an anatomically modern human, rather than a Neanderthal. Radiocarbon dating was undertaken at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU). The radiocarbon age determination of the bone fragment, 27 740 ± 150 bp (OxA‐19850), is one of the earliest direct dates for a modern human from Siberia. The Pokrovka cranial fragment dates to the middle Upper Palaeolithic of Eurasia and is broadly contemporary with the human remains from the famous eastern European site of Sunghir. When the radiocarbon age is compared with the Cariaco Basin 14C data set and the Greenland oxygen isotope record of NGRIP, it corresponds with Greenland Interstadial 5, a warmer phase of the Last Glacial period, although this is a preliminary conclusion, and is based on climate records that may or may not be wholly synchronous between the two locations.