Radiocarbon Variations in Consecutive Single Rings of A 4000-Year-Old Pine from the British Isles

At the Ninth International Radiocarbon Conference a paper was presented concerning possible short-term 14 C variations in 4000-year-old red deer antlers (Cervus elaphus) found in Neolithic flint mines in Norfolk, England (Burleigh and Hewson, 1980). It was argued, on archaeologic grounds, that the true age of the samples varied by a few years at most. Their radiocarbon ages, however, varied by a considerably greater amount than could be explained by the errors in the measurements. Duplication of the measurements confirmed this unexpected variation. Farmer and Baxter (1972) claimed a significant correlation of atmospheric 14 C levels in the northern hemisphere with sunspot number based on radiocarbon assay of single tree rings for the period 1829 to 1865. In contrast, Stuiver (1978) stated that a series of single-year Douglas Fir measurements did not show a statistically significant periodicity. This paper reports measurements made on a series of single-year dendrochronologic samples of approximately the same age as the red deer antlers, which have been carried out at the British Museum Research Laboratory. The results show that the variation in 14 C between rings is not statistically significant; some other explanation must be sought for the anomalous antler measurements

Antler · Archaeology · Atmospheric sciences · Biology · Cervus elaphus · Climatology · Dendrochronology · Geography · Northern Hemisphere · Physical geography · Radiocarbon dating · Southern Hemisphere · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology · Ecology · Geology

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  Open Access•A D Hewson, J A Hall•Radiocarbon•1980

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