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Differences in 14C Age Between Stratigraphically Associated Charcoal and Marine Shell from the Archaic Period Site of Kilometer 4, Southern Peru: Old Wood or Old Water?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Douglas J Kennett ,
B Lynn Ingram ,
John R Southon  and
Karen Wise
Douglas J Kennett*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403 USA.
B Lynn Ingram
Affiliation:
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, California 94556 USA
John R Southon
Affiliation:
Earth System Science Department, University of California, Irvine, California 92697 USA
Karen Wise
Affiliation:
Anthropology Section, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90007 USA
*
Corresponding author. Email: dkennett@oregon.uoregon.edu.
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Abstract

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Consistently large differences occur in the calibrated 14C ages of stratigraphically associated shell and charcoal samples from Kilometer 4, an Archaic Period archaeological site located on the extreme south coast of Peru. A series of nine shell and charcoal samples were collected from a Late Archaic Period (~6000–4000 BP) sector of the site. After calibration, the intercepts of the charcoal dates were ~100–750 years older than the paired shell samples. Due to the hyper-arid conditions in this region that promote long-term preservation of organic material, we argue that the older charcoal dates are best explained by people using old wood for fuel during the Middle Holocene. Given this “old wood” problem, marine shell may actually be preferable to wood charcoal for dating archaeological sites in coastal desert environments as in southern Peru and Northern Chile.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , 2002 , pp. 53 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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