AMS Dating of the Late Copper Age Varna Cemetery, Bulgaria. Issue 2 (1st March 2018)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- AMS Dating of the Late Copper Age Varna Cemetery, Bulgaria. Issue 2 (1st March 2018)
- Main Title:
- AMS Dating of the Late Copper Age Varna Cemetery, Bulgaria
- Authors:
- Higham, Thomas
Slavchev, Vladimir
Gaydarska, Bisserka
Chapman, John - Abstract:
- Abstract: The Varna I cemetery, on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, is one of the most remarkable sites in European prehistory, with the world's earliest large-scale assemblage of gold artifacts. Modeling of the first series of 14 accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates yielded a duration of occupation at the site of ca. 150 years, ~4600–4450 cal BC. However, there were insufficient paired human–animal dates for a full consideration of the question of the marine reservoir effect. Here, a fuller set of 71 dates from 53 graves is presented. We identify a small reservoir effect in a number of individuals based on 14 C, as well as carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. We test the effect of this by building a series of different Bayesian models. Our favored model, including a correction for some of the human determinations, shows activity at the cemetery starting at 4596–4516 cal BC and ending 4427–4341 cal BC (at 95.4% probability). The overall span of activity covers ~120–260 years (93.6% prob.). The modeling shows that Varna I falls toward the beginning of the Bulgarian Late Copper Age.
- Is Part Of:
- Radiocarbon. Volume 60:Issue 2(2018)
- Journal:
- Radiocarbon
- Issue:
- Volume 60:Issue 2(2018)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 60, Issue 2 (2018)
- Year:
- 2018
- Volume:
- 60
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2018-0060-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 493
- Page End:
- 516
- Publication Date:
- 2018-03-01
- Subjects:
- AMS dating, -- Bulgaria, -- Copper Age, -- marine reservoir effect, -- Varna cemetery
Radiocarbon dating -- Periodicals
930.1028505 - Journal URLs:
- http://radiocarbon.library.arizona.edu/ ↗
http://www.radiocarbon.org/ ↗
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=RDC ↗
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/radiocarbon ↗
http://www.catchword.com/rpsv/catchword/arizona/00338222/contp1-1.htm ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1017/RDC.2018.9 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0033-8222
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store
- Ingest File:
- 6617.xml