Abstract
ABSTRACTThe Nekselø Wickerwork provides an unusually solid estimate on the marine reservoir age in the Holocene. The basis for this result is a 5200-year-old fish weir, built of hazel wood with a brief biological age of its own. Oysters settled on this construction. They had lived only for a short number of years when the fence capsized and was covered in mud and the mollusks suffocated. Based on the difference in radiocarbon (14C) age between accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) samples of oyster shells and wood, respectively, the marine reservoir age for this site is estimated to 273 ± 18 14C years. Re-evaluations of previously produced data from geological and archaeological sites of Holocene date in the Danish archipelago indicate marine reservoir ages in the same order as that of the Wickerwork. Consequently, we recommend the use of the new value, rather than the ca. 400 14C years hitherto favored, when correcting for the dietary induced reservoir effect in radiocarbon dates of humans and animals from the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic periods of this region.
Highlights
Uncertainty as to the accurate value of the reservoir effect in radiocarbon (14C) dates is a considerable challenge to prehistorians, geneticists, etc. in their attempts at reconstructing the course of events in cultural and population history
Based on the difference in radiocarbon (14C) age between accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) samples of oyster shells and wood, respectively, the marine reservoir age for this site is estimated to 273 ± 18 14C years
Many of the radiocarbon dates essential to the study of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transformation process in Denmark are significantly influenced by the marine reservoir effect (e.g. Tauber 1981a and 1981b; Andersen 1991 and 1993; Persson 1999; Price et al 2007) and a clarification of the reservoir age applying to the period and geographic area in question is much needed
Summary
Uncertainty as to the accurate value of the reservoir effect in radiocarbon (14C) dates is a considerable challenge to prehistorians, geneticists, etc. in their attempts at reconstructing the course of events in cultural and population history. A study based on 27 paired samples of terrestrial plant material and shells from marine mollusks respectively, derived from sediment cores of Holocene to recent date at three sites in fjords and inlets in the Danish archipelago, produced highly varied estimates of reservoir age. Using the outermost year rings may, have introduced a risk that wood samples were contaminated by recent microscopic substances such as fungi, bacteria and rootlets This risk clearly applies to a sample from panel E, taken from a vertical pole that had been eroded out of the marine gyttja and exposed directly to light and oxygen-rich sea water, most likely for several years prior to sampling (Figure 3). 14.0 94 nd 212 ± 60 241 ± 59 227 ± 51 218 ± 70 362 ± 63 305 ± 56 262 ± 38 χ2 1.1≤3.8
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