Chris Turney
Biographic Data
| ID | 199690 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Chris Turney |
| GIVEN NAMES | Chris |
| FAMILY NAME | Turney |
| SIGNATURE | TURNEY C |
| AFFILIATIONS | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6733-0993 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 55 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 3501 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 55 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
The age and position of the southern boundary of prehistoric Polynesian dispersal
Prehistoric Polynesian voyaging into high latitudes with landfall in Antarctica remains a widely credited proposition. We examine it through archaeological and environmental evidence from the Subantarctic region of the southwest Pacific, focussing upon an extensive archaeological site at Sandy Bay on Enderby Island. Combining a new set of radiocarbon ages with former, older, ages we show that the site is now within the same rapid expansion phase …
Development of the Intcal Database
The IntCal family of radiocarbon ( 14 C) calibration curves is based on research spanning more than three decades. The IntCal group have collated the 14 C and calendar age data (mostly derived from primary publications with other types of data and meta-data) and, since 2010, made them available for other sorts of analysis through an open-access database. This has ensured transparency in terms of the data used in the construction of the ratified c…
Examining past and projecting future
Managing water security and sustaining ecosystem functions under future warming poses substantial challenges for semi-arid regions. The Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) is particularly vulnerable given the considerable demand for water that underpins Australia’s agricultural production and contribution to the national economy. Understanding future drought risk requires a robust assessment of natural variability in drought length, frequency, and magnitu…
The Accuracy and Precision of Small-Sized Modern Wood Samples Analyzed at the Chronos 14 Carbon-Cycle Facility
Tree-ring series offer considerable potential for the development of environment-sensitive proxy records. However, with traditional increment cores, only small amounts of wood are often available from annual tree-ring sequences. For this reason, it is important to understand the reliability (and reproducibility) of radiocarbon measurements obtained from small-sized samples. Here we report the F 14 C results from the Chronos 14 Carbon-Cycle Facili…
The Application of Pollen Radiocarbon Dating and Bayesian Age-Depth Modeling for Developing Robust Geochronological Frameworks of Wetland Archives
Wetland sediments are valuable archives of environmental change but can be challenging to date. Terrestrial macrofossils are often sparse, resulting in radiocarbon ( 14 C) dating of less desirable organic fractions. An alternative approach for capturing changes in atmospheric 14 C is the use of terrestrial microfossils. We 14 C date pollen microfossils from two Australian wetland sediment sequences and compare these to ages from other sediment fr…
Atmospheric Radiocarbon for the Period 1950–2019
This paper presents a compilation of atmospheric radiocarbon for the period 1950–2019, derived from atmospheric CO 2 sampling and tree rings from clean-air sites. Following the approach taken by Hua et al. (2013), our revised and extended compilation consists of zonal, hemispheric and global radiocarbon ( 14 C) data sets, with monthly data sets for 5 zones (Northern Hemisphere zones 1, 2, and 3, and Southern Hemisphere zones 3 and 1–2). Our new c…
The implications of the recently recognized mid-20th century shift in the Earth system
Satellite observations offering detailed records of global environmental change are only available from 1979. Emerging studies combining high-quality instrumental and natural observations highlight that the Earth system experienced a substantial shift across the mid-20th century, one that appears to have taken place before the Great Acceleration of human activities from the 1950s. These new results have far-reaching implications for understanding…
Radiocarbon Protocols and First Intercomparison Results From the Chronos 14 Carbon-Cycle Facility, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
The Chronos 14 Carbon-Cycle Facility is a new radiocarbon laboratory at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Built around an Ionplus 200 kV MIni-CArbon DAting System (MICADAS) Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) installed in October 2019, the facility was established to address major challenges in the Earth, Environmental and Archaeological sciences. Here we report an overview of the Chronos facility, the pretreatment methods currently e…
SHCal20 Southern Hemisphere Calibration, 0–55,000 Years cal BP
Early researchers of radiocarbon levels in Southern Hemisphere tree rings identified a variable North-South hemispheric offset, necessitating construction of a separate radiocarbon calibration curve for the South. We present here SHCal20, a revised calibration curve from 0–55,000 cal BP, based upon SHCal13 and fortified by the addition of 14 new tree-ring data sets in the 2140–0, 3520–3453, 3608–3590 and 13,140–11,375 cal BP time intervals. We de…
The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curve (0–55 cal kBP)
Radiocarbon ( 14 C) ages cannot provide absolutely dated chronologies for archaeological or paleoenvironmental studies directly but must be converted to calendar age equivalents using a calibration curve compensating for fluctuations in atmospheric 14 C concentration. Although calibration curves are constructed from independently dated archives, they invariably require revision as new data become available and our understanding of the Earth syste…
The Influence of Calibration Curve Construction and Composition on the Accuracy and Precision of Radiocarbon Wiggle-Matching of Tree Rings, Illustrated by Southern Hemisphere Atmospheric Data Sets fro…
This research investigates two factors influencing the ability of tree-ring data to provide accurate 14 C calibration information: the fitness and rigor of the statistical model used to combine the data into a curve; and the accuracy, precision and reproducibility of the component 14 C data sets. It presents a new Bayesian spline method for calibration curve construction and tests it on extant and new Southern Hemisphere (SH) data sets (also exam…
Investigating Subantarctic 14 C Ages of Different Peat Components
Precise radiocarbon ( 14 C) dating of sedimentary sequences is important for developing robust chronologies of environmental change, but sampling of suitable components can be challenging in highly dynamic landscapes. Here we investigate radiocarbon determinations of different peat size fractions from six peat sites, representing a range of geomorphological contexts on the South Atlantic subantarctic islands of the Falklands and South Georgia. To…
When did Homo sapiens first reach Southeast Asia and Sahul?
Anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens , AMH) began spreading across Eurasia from Africa and adjacent Southwest Asia about 50,000–55,000 years ago ( ca . 50–55 ka). Some have argued that human genetic, fossil, and archaeological data indicate one or more prior dispersals, possibly as early as 120 ka. A recently reported age estimate of 65 ka for Madjedbebe, an archaeological site in northern Sahul (Pleistocene Australia–New Guinea), if correct…
Why didn't they ask Evans
In ’Why didn't they ask Evans?’ (Turney, 2017), I draw together previously unpublished sources and new analyses of published material to cast further light on the circumstances that led to the fatal events surrounding the return of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Polar Party on the British Antarctic Expedition (BAE, 1911–1913). Of particular importance are the notes on the meeting between the Royal Geographical Society's President Lord Curzon and t…
Potential for tree rings to reveal spatial patterns of past drought variability across western Australia
Proxy records have provided major insights into the variability of past climates over long timescales. However, for much of the Southern Hemisphere, the ability to identify spatial patterns of past climatic variability is constrained by the sparse distribution of proxy records. This is particularly true for mainland Australia, where relatively few proxy records are located. Here, we (1) assess the potential to use existing proxy records in the Au…
Why didn't they ask Evans
Arguably the best known scientific Antarctic venture was the British Antarctic Expedition of 1911–1913 led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott. Whilst the so-called race to the geographic South Pole with Roald Amundsen's Norwegian Antarctic expedition excited international interest, the tragic death of Scott and his returning Polar Party was a striking reminder of the hazards of operating in the south. Recent work has highlighted the possible role exp…
Anomalous mid-twentieth century atmospheric circulation change over the South Atlantic compared to the last 6000 years
Determining the timing and impact of anthropogenic climate change in data-sparse regions is a considerable challenge. Arguably, nowhere is this more difficult than the Antarctic Peninsula and the subantarctic South Atlantic where observational records are relatively short but where high rates of warming have been experienced since records began. Here we interrogate recently developed monthly-resolved observational datasets from the Falkland Islan…
Decadally Resolved Lateglacial Radiocarbon Evidence from New Zealand Kauri
The Last Glacial–Interglacial Transition (LGIT; 15,000–11,000 cal BP) was characterized by complex spatiotemporal patterns of climate change, with numerous studies requiring accurate chronological control to decipher leads from lags in global paleoclimatic, paleoenvironmental, and archaeological records. However, close scrutiny of the few available tree-ring chronologies and radiocarbon-dated sequences composing the IntCal13 14 C calibration curv…
Extreme wet conditions coincident with Bronze Age abandonment of upland areas in Britain
Continental-scale temperature variability during the past two millennia
The discovery of New Zealand's oldest shipwreck – possible evidence of further Dutch exploration of the South Pacific
Is there any Evidence for Regional Atmospheric 14 C Offsets in the Southern Hemisphere
Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CAMS) Tasmanian Huon pine ( Lagarostrobos franklinii ) decadal measurements for the interval AD 745–855 suggest a mean interhemispheric radiocarbon offset (20 ± 5 yr), which is considerably lower than the previously reported mean interhemispheric offset for the last 2 millennia (44 ± 17 yr). However, comparable University of Waikato (Wk) New Zealand kauri ( Agathis australis ) measurements show significan…
SHCal13 Southern Hemisphere Calibration, 0–50,000 Years cal BP
The Southern Hemisphere SHCal04 radiocarbon calibration curve has been updated with the addition of new data sets extending measurements to 2145 cal BP and including the ANSTO Younger Dryas Huon pine data set. Outside the range of measured data, the curve is based upon the ern Hemisphere data sets as presented in IntCal13, with an interhemispheric offset averaging 43 ± 23 yr modeled by an autoregressive process to represent the short-term correla…
Selection and Treatment of Data for Radiocarbon Calibration
High-quality data from appropriate archives are needed for the continuing improvement of radiocarbon calibration curves. We discuss here the basic assumptions behind 14 C dating that necessitate calibration and the relative strengths and weaknesses of archives from which calibration data are obtained. We also highlight the procedures, problems, and uncertainties involved in determining atmospheric and surface ocean 14 C/ 12 C in these archives, i…
The New Zealand Kauri ( Agathis Australis ) Research Project
Wc describe here the New Zealand kauri ( Agathis australis ) Younger Dryas (YD) research project, which aims to undertake Δ 14 C analysis of ∼140 decadal floating wood samples spanning the time interval ∼13.1–11.7 kyr cal BP. We report 14 C intercomparison measurements being undertaken by the carbon dating laboratories at University of Waikato (Wk), University of California at Irvine (UCI), and University of Oxford (OxA). The Wk, UCI, and OxA lab…
IntCal09 and Marine09 Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curves, 0-50,000 Years cal BP
The IntCal04 and Marine04 radiocarbon calibration curves have been updated from 12 cal kBP (cal kBP is here defined as thousands of calibrated years before AD 1950), and extended to 50 cal kBP, utilizing newly available data sets that meet the IntCal Working Group criteria for pristine corals and other carbonates and for quantification of uncertainty in both the 14 C and calendar timescales as established in 2002. No change was made to the curves…
The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere Radiocarbon Age Calibration Curve (0–55 cal kBP)
Radiocarbon ( 14 C) ages cannot provide absolutely dated chronologies for archaeological or paleoenvironmental studies directly but must be converted to calendar age equivalents using a calibration curve compensating for fluctuations in atmospheric 14 C concentration. Although calibration curves are constructed from independently dated archives, they invariably require revision as new data become available and our understanding of the Earth syste…
SHCal13 Southern Hemisphere Calibration, 0–50,000 Years cal BP
The Southern Hemisphere SHCal04 radiocarbon calibration curve has been updated with the addition of new data sets extending measurements to 2145 cal BP and including the ANSTO Younger Dryas Huon pine data set. Outside the range of measured data, the curve is based upon the ern Hemisphere data sets as presented in IntCal13, with an interhemispheric offset averaging 43 ± 23 yr modeled by an autoregressive process to represent the short-term correla…
SHCal20 Southern Hemisphere Calibration, 0–55,000 Years cal BP
Early researchers of radiocarbon levels in Southern Hemisphere tree rings identified a variable North-South hemispheric offset, necessitating construction of a separate radiocarbon calibration curve for the South. We present here SHCal20, a revised calibration curve from 0–55,000 cal BP, based upon SHCal13 and fortified by the addition of 14 new tree-ring data sets in the 2140–0, 3520–3453, 3608–3590 and 13,140–11,375 cal BP time intervals. We de…
The 'human revolution' in lowland tropical Southeast Asia
Atmospheric Radiocarbon for the Period 1950–2019
This paper presents a compilation of atmospheric radiocarbon for the period 1950–2019, derived from atmospheric CO 2 sampling and tree rings from clean-air sites. Following the approach taken by Hua et al. (2013), our revised and extended compilation consists of zonal, hemispheric and global radiocarbon ( 14 C) data sets, with monthly data sets for 5 zones (Northern Hemisphere zones 1, 2, and 3, and Southern Hemisphere zones 3 and 1–2). Our new c…
Geochronology of cave deposits at Liang Bua and of adjacent river terraces in the Wae Racang valley, western Flores, Indonesia
Radiocarbon Dating of the Human Occupation of Australia Prior to 40 ka BP—Successes and Pitfalls
Charcoal samples from ancient human occupation sites in Australia have been subjected to a rigorous pretreatment and stepped combustion regime in order to explore the possibility that these sites may be older than previous radiocarbon dating had suggested. In one case, the Devil's Lair site in southwest Australia, the methodology has clearly removed vestiges of contamination by more modern carbon and has led to a revised radiocarbon chronology th…
Climate, people and faunal succession on Java, Indonesia
Selection and Treatment of Data for Radiocarbon Calibration
High-quality data from appropriate archives are needed for the continuing improvement of radiocarbon calibration curves. We discuss here the basic assumptions behind 14 C dating that necessitate calibration and the relative strengths and weaknesses of archives from which calibration data are obtained. We also highlight the procedures, problems, and uncertainties involved in determining atmospheric and surface ocean 14 C/ 12 C in these archives, i…
Enso influence on Holocene Aboriginal populations in Queensland, Australia
Holocene climatic change and past Irish societal response
The New Zealand Kauri ( Agathis Australis ) Research Project
Wc describe here the New Zealand kauri ( Agathis australis ) Younger Dryas (YD) research project, which aims to undertake Δ 14 C analysis of ∼140 decadal floating wood samples spanning the time interval ∼13.1–11.7 kyr cal BP. We report 14 C intercomparison measurements being undertaken by the carbon dating laboratories at University of Waikato (Wk), University of California at Irvine (UCI), and University of Oxford (OxA). The Wk, UCI, and OxA lab…
Human—environment interactions in Australian drylands
Exploratory time-series analysis of radiocarbon data from archaeological contexts is used to reconstruct the population history of arid Australia, allowing this to be read in concert with records of climatic variability over the last 20 000 years. Probability distribution plots of 971 radiocarbon ages from 286 sites in five dryland regions (the arid west coast, Pilbara and Murchison, Nullarbor, arid interior and the southeastern arid zone) provid…
Radiocarbon Protocols and First Intercomparison Results From the Chronos 14 Carbon-Cycle Facility, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
The Chronos 14 Carbon-Cycle Facility is a new radiocarbon laboratory at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Built around an Ionplus 200 kV MIni-CArbon DAting System (MICADAS) Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) installed in October 2019, the facility was established to address major challenges in the Earth, Environmental and Archaeological sciences. Here we report an overview of the Chronos facility, the pretreatment methods currently e…
Decadally Resolved Lateglacial Radiocarbon Evidence from New Zealand Kauri
The Last Glacial–Interglacial Transition (LGIT; 15,000–11,000 cal BP) was characterized by complex spatiotemporal patterns of climate change, with numerous studies requiring accurate chronological control to decipher leads from lags in global paleoclimatic, paleoenvironmental, and archaeological records. However, close scrutiny of the few available tree-ring chronologies and radiocarbon-dated sequences composing the IntCal13 14 C calibration curv…
High-Precision Radiocarbon Measurements of Tree-Ring Dated Wood from New Zealand
The best means for correcting Southern Hemisphere (SH) radiocarbon measurements, which are significantly influenced by temporal variations in the interhemispheric offset, is by the construction of a SH-specific calibration curve from dendrochronologically dated wood. We present here decadal 14 C measurements on dendrochronologically secure New Zealand kauri ( Agathis australis ), covering the period 195 BC–AD 995, extending the range of calibrati…
Bayesian Evaluation of the Southern Hemisphere Radiocarbon Offset during the Holocene
While an interhemispheric offset in atmospheric radiocarbon levels from AD 1950–950 is now well established, its existence earlier in the Holocene is less clear, with some studies reporting globally uniform 14 C levels while others finding Southern Hemisphere samples older by a few decades. In this paper, we present a method for wiggle-matching Southern Hemisphere data sets against Northern Hemisphere curves, using the Bayesian calibration progra…
Towards a Radiocarbon Calibration for Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 Using New Zealand Kauri ( Agathis Australis )
It is well known that radiocarbon years do not directly equate to calendar time. As a result, considerable effort has been devoted to generating a decadally resolved calibration curve for the Holocene and latter part of the last termination. A calibration curve that can be unambiguously attributed to changes in atmospheric 14 C content has not, however, been generated beyond 26 kyr cal BP, despite the urgent need to rigorously test climatic, envi…
Robust Radiocarbon Dating of Wood Samples by High-Sensitivity Liquid Scintillation Spectroscopy in the 50–70 kyr Age Range
Although high-sensitivity liquid scintillation (LS) spectroscopy is theoretically capable of producing finite radiocarbon ages in the 50,000- to 70,000-yr range, there is little evidence in the literature that meaningful dates in this time period have been obtained. The pressing need to undertake calibration beyond 26 kyr has resulted in the regular publication of 14 C results in excess of 50 kyr, yet very little effort has been made to demonstra…
New Abox Ams- 14 C Ages Remove Dating Anomalies At Puritjarra Rock Shelter
Short Reports more generally to gain an appreciation of what information is in existence, its location and how to obtain it. The creation of the Bowen Basin Collection originated as a response to this. Information within the collection largely (but not solely) derives fiom material amassed throughout the nearly seven year course of the Bowen Basin Project. As the Collection took shape, major gaps in the information held and the incomplete nature …
Is there any Evidence for Regional Atmospheric 14 C Offsets in the Southern Hemisphere
Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (CAMS) Tasmanian Huon pine ( Lagarostrobos franklinii ) decadal measurements for the interval AD 745–855 suggest a mean interhemispheric radiocarbon offset (20 ± 5 yr), which is considerably lower than the previously reported mean interhemispheric offset for the last 2 millennia (44 ± 17 yr). However, comparable University of Waikato (Wk) New Zealand kauri ( Agathis australis ) measurements show significan…
Investigating Subantarctic 14 C Ages of Different Peat Components
Precise radiocarbon ( 14 C) dating of sedimentary sequences is important for developing robust chronologies of environmental change, but sampling of suitable components can be challenging in highly dynamic landscapes. Here we investigate radiocarbon determinations of different peat size fractions from six peat sites, representing a range of geomorphological contexts on the South Atlantic subantarctic islands of the Falklands and South Georgia. To…
Environmental change and the arrival of people in the Australian region
Continuous pollen and charcoal records, predominantly from well dated marine sediments, provide a good spatial coverage of patterns of change in vegetation, climate and biomass burning within the northern Australian - southern Indonesian region through the late Quaternary period. Northern hemisphere ice volume and monsoon forcing is conspicuous on orbital timescales with general expansion of wetter communities under higher precipitation during in…
The Application of Pollen Radiocarbon Dating and Bayesian Age-Depth Modeling for Developing Robust Geochronological Frameworks of Wetland Archives
Wetland sediments are valuable archives of environmental change but can be challenging to date. Terrestrial macrofossils are often sparse, resulting in radiocarbon ( 14 C) dating of less desirable organic fractions. An alternative approach for capturing changes in atmospheric 14 C is the use of terrestrial microfossils. We 14 C date pollen microfossils from two Australian wetland sediment sequences and compare these to ages from other sediment fr…
Carbon Isotope Variations and Chronology of the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (14–9 ka BP)
We present δ 13 C data from both bulk organic sediment samples and terrestrial plant macrofossils from five high-resolution sedimentary sequences from the United Kingdom from which extensive multiproxy data sets have been obtained. These span the last glacial-interglacial transition. Chronological control has been provided by radiocarbon dating and/or tephrochronology. The results demonstrate that significant shifts in bulk organic δ 13 C can be …
Implications for the Dating of Wisconsinan (Weichselian) Late-Glacial Events of Systematic Radiocarbon Age Differences between Terrestrial Plant Macrofossils from a Site in SW Ireland
AMS radiocarbon dates were obtained from Salix herbacea leaves, Carex seeds, and bulk organic detritus from a lake sediment profile of Wisconsinan (Weichselian) Lateglacial age in SW Ireland. There is a systematic age difference between the dated series from the two types of macrofossils, with ages obtained from Salix herbacea leaves being 900 to 1500 14 C years younger than those obtained from Carex seeds. The latter tend to be more in accord wi…
Early Human Occupation at Devil's Lair, Southwestern Australia 50,000 Years Ago
New dating confirms that people occupied the Australian continent before the earliest time inferred from conventional radiocarbon analysis. Many of the new ages were obtained by accelerator mass spectrometry 14 C dating after an acid–base–acid pretreatment with bulk combustion (ABA-BC) or after a newly developed acid–base–wet oxidation pretreatment with stepped combustion (ABOX-SC). The samples (charcoal) came from the earliest occupation levels …
New Abox Ams- 14 C Ages Remove Dating Anomalies At Puritjarra Rock Shelter
Short Reports more generally to gain an appreciation of what information is in existence, its location and how to obtain it. The creation of the Bowen Basin Collection originated as a response to this. Information within the collection largely (but not solely) derives fiom material amassed throughout the nearly seven year course of the Bowen Basin Project. As the Collection took shape, major gaps in the information held and the incomplete nature …
Radiocarbon Dating of the Human Occupation of Australia Prior to 40 ka BP—Successes and Pitfalls
Charcoal samples from ancient human occupation sites in Australia have been subjected to a rigorous pretreatment and stepped combustion regime in order to explore the possibility that these sites may be older than previous radiocarbon dating had suggested. In one case, the Devil's Lair site in southwest Australia, the methodology has clearly removed vestiges of contamination by more modern carbon and has led to a revised radiocarbon chronology th…
Radiocarbon analysis of the early archaeological site of Nauwalabila I, Arnhem Land, Australia
Interpreting stable-isotope records from freshwater snail-shell carbonate
The oxygen and carbon stable-isotope ratios from fossil snail shells within a small intramontane lake in southwest Turkey are used to highlight the potential, and problems, of using freshwater snail carbonate as a palaeoenvironmental proxy. Two species (Gyraulus piscinarum and Valvata cristata) yielded different isotope ratios at the same sampling intervals, probably due to differences in water-isotope composition between different microhabitats.…
Determining the tinning and pattern of human colonisation in Australia
At present, radiocarbon dating estimates of the age of human occupation of archaeological sites in Australia are virtually all based on single, or comparatively few, radiocarbon dates at the depth associated with the earliest cultural remains. Several new radiocarbon ‘calibration’ curves for the early occupation period of Australia (>30,000 14C BP), some of which suggest significantly rapid and extreme shifts in apparent radiocarbon age, have bec…
Late-glacial and Holocene vegetation and climatic history of the Cass Basin, central South Island, New Zealand
Lithology, pollen, macrofossils, and stable carbon isotopes from an intermontane basin bog site in southern New Zealand provide a detailed late-glacial and early Holocene vegetation and climate record. Glacial retreat occurred before 17,000 cal yr B.P., and tundra-like grassland"shrubland occupied the basin shortly after. Between 16,500 and 14,600 cal yr B.P., a minor regional expansion of forest patches occurred in response to warming, but the b…
Holocene climatic change and past Irish societal response
Bones, Rocks and Stars
What is the Turin Shroud? When were the Pyramids built? Why did the dinosaurs die out? How did the Earth take shape? With questions like these, says Chris Turney, time is of the essence. And understan
And then there was One
The 'missing link'. The phrase encapsulates an array of ideas: a creature somewhere between apes and ourselves; eccentric scientists exploring the back of beyond; a deep-seated desire to know where we came from. The expression often guarantees media time for any find, no matter how small Yet it's also one of the most divisive areas of human endeavour. With only a small number of human fossils, there are almost as many ideas about what they mean. …
Environmental change and the arrival of people in the Australian region
Continuous pollen and charcoal records, predominantly from well dated marine sediments, provide a good spatial coverage of patterns of change in vegetation, climate and biomass burning within the northern Australian - southern Indonesian region through the late Quaternary period. Northern hemisphere ice volume and monsoon forcing is conspicuous on orbital timescales with general expansion of wetter communities under higher precipitation during in…
Enso influence on Holocene Aboriginal populations in Queensland, Australia
Does the El Niño–Southern Oscillation control the interhemispheric radiocarbon offset?
Since the 1970s it has been recognised that Southern Hemisphere samples have a lower radiocarbon content than contemporaneous material in the Northern Hemisphere. This interhemispheric radiocarbon offset has traditionally been considered to be the result of a greater surface area in the southern ocean and high-latitude deepwater formation. This is despite the fact that the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is known to play a significant role in…
Robust Radiocarbon Dating of Wood Samples by High-Sensitivity Liquid Scintillation Spectroscopy in the 50–70 kyr Age Range
Although high-sensitivity liquid scintillation (LS) spectroscopy is theoretically capable of producing finite radiocarbon ages in the 50,000- to 70,000-yr range, there is little evidence in the literature that meaningful dates in this time period have been obtained. The pressing need to undertake calibration beyond 26 kyr has resulted in the regular publication of 14 C results in excess of 50 kyr, yet very little effort has been made to demonstra…
Towards a Radiocarbon Calibration for Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 Using New Zealand Kauri ( Agathis Australis )
It is well known that radiocarbon years do not directly equate to calendar time. As a result, considerable effort has been devoted to generating a decadally resolved calibration curve for the Holocene and latter part of the last termination. A calibration curve that can be unambiguously attributed to changes in atmospheric 14 C content has not, however, been generated beyond 26 kyr cal BP, despite the urgent need to rigorously test climatic, envi…
The 'human revolution' in lowland tropical Southeast Asia
Changes in fire regimes since the Last Glacial Maximum
Geochemical characterization of Quaternary tephras from the Campanian Province, Italy
Human—environment interactions in Australian drylands
Exploratory time-series analysis of radiocarbon data from archaeological contexts is used to reconstruct the population history of arid Australia, allowing this to be read in concert with records of climatic variability over the last 20 000 years. Probability distribution plots of 971 radiocarbon ages from 286 sites in five dryland regions (the arid west coast, Pilbara and Murchison, Nullarbor, arid interior and the southeastern arid zone) provid…
Backfill
Climate, people and faunal succession on Java, Indonesia
Bayesian Evaluation of the Southern Hemisphere Radiocarbon Offset during the Holocene
While an interhemispheric offset in atmospheric radiocarbon levels from AD 1950–950 is now well established, its existence earlier in the Holocene is less clear, with some studies reporting globally uniform 14 C levels while others finding Southern Hemisphere samples older by a few decades. In this paper, we present a method for wiggle-matching Southern Hemisphere data sets against Northern Hemisphere curves, using the Bayesian calibration progra…
Geochronology of cave deposits at Liang Bua and of adjacent river terraces in the Wae Racang valley, western Flores, Indonesia
Geography (40 works) · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research (40 works) · Geology (36 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (31 works) · Radiocarbon dating (30 works) · Archaeology (27 works) · Paleontology (26 works) · Physical geography (26 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (21 works) · Climatology (20 works)