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AMS Radiocarbon Dating of Ancient Bone Using Ultrafiltration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

T F G Higham ,
R M Jacobi  and
C Bronk Ramsey
T F G Higham*
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, RLAHA, Dyson Perrins Building, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom
R M Jacobi
Affiliation:
Department of Prehistory and Europe, Franks House, The British Museum, London N1 5QJ, United Kingdom; also Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, United Kingdom
C Bronk Ramsey
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, RLAHA, Dyson Perrins Building, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom
*
Corresponding author. Email: thomas.higham@rlaha.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

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The Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU) has used an ultrafiltration protocol to further purify gelatin from archaeological bone since 2000. In this paper, the methodology is described, and it is shown that, in many instances, ultrafiltration successfully removes low molecular weight contaminants that less rigorous methods may not. These contaminants can sometimes be of a different radiocarbon age and, unless removed, may produce erroneous determinations, particularly when one is dating bones greater than 2 to 3 half-lives of 14C and the contaminants are of modern age. Results of the redating of bone of Late Middle and Early Upper Paleolithic age from the British Isles and Europe suggest that we may need to look again at the traditional chronology for these periods.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , 2006 , pp. 179 - 195
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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