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New 14C Determinations from Lake Suigetsu, Japan: 12,000 to 0 Cal BP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Richard A Staff ,
Christopher Bronk Ramsey ,
Charlotte L Bryant ,
Fiona Brock ,
Rebecca L Payne ,
Gordon Schlolaut ,
Michael H Marshall ,
Achim Brauer ,
Henry F Lamb  and
Pavel Tarasov
...Show all authors
Richard A Staff*
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom.
Christopher Bronk Ramsey
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom.
Charlotte L Bryant
Affiliation:
NERC Radiocarbon Facility–Environment (NRCF-E), Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, Rankine Avenue, East Kilbride G75 0QF, United Kingdom.
Fiona Brock
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU), Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA), University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom.
Rebecca L Payne
Affiliation:
Dept. of Geography, University of Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
Gordon Schlolaut
Affiliation:
Section 5.2: Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution, German Research Center for Geoscience (GFZ), Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany.
Michael H Marshall
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, United Kingdom.
Achim Brauer
Affiliation:
Section 5.2: Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution, German Research Center for Geoscience (GFZ), Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany.
Henry F Lamb
Affiliation:
Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB, United Kingdom.
Pavel Tarasov
Affiliation:
Institute of Geological Sciences, Palaeontology, Freie Universität Berlin, Malteserstrasse 74-100, Building D, 12249 Berlin, Germany.
Yusuke Yokoyama
Affiliation:
Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. Also: Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, 1-15-1 Minami-dai, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-8639, Japan.
Tsuyoshi Haraguchi
Affiliation:
Dept. of Biology and Geosciences, Osaka City University, 3-3-138 Sugimoto, Japan.
Katsuya Gotanda
Affiliation:
Faculty of Policy Informatics, Chiba University of Commerce, Chiba 272-8512, Japan.
Hitoshi Yonenobu
Affiliation:
College of Education, Naruto University of Education, Naruto 772-8502, Japan.
Takeshi Nakagawa
Affiliation:
Dept. of Geography, University of Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU, United Kingdom.
Suigetsu 2006 Project Members
Affiliation:
For full details, see: www.suigetsu.org.
*
Corresponding author. Email: richard.staff@rlaha.ox.ac.uk.
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Abstract

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Calibration is a fundamental stage of the radiocarbon (14C) dating process if one is to derive meaningful calendar ages from samples' 14C measurements. For the first time, the IntCal09 calibration curve (Reimer et al. 2009) provided an internationally ratified calibration data set across almost the complete range (0 to 50,000 cal BP) of the 14C timescale. However, only the last 12,550 cal yr of this record are composed of terrestrial data, leaving approximately three quarters of the 14C timescale necessarily calibrated via less secure, marine records (incorporating assumptions pertaining to the temporally variable “marine reservoir effect”). The predominantly annually laminated (varved) sediment profile of Lake Suigetsu, central Japan, offers an ideal opportunity to derive an extended terrestrial record of atmospheric 14C across the entire range of the method, through pairing of 14C measurements of terrestrial plant macrofossil samples (extracted from the sediment) with the independent chronology provided through counting of its annual laminations.

This paper presents new data (182 14C determinations) from the upper (largely non-varved) 15 m of the Lake Suigetsu (SG06) sediment strata. These measurements provide evidence of excellent coherence between the Suigetsu 14C data and the IntCal09 calibration curve across the last ~12,000 cal yr (i.e. the portion of IntCal based entirely on terrestrial data). Such agreement demonstrates that terrestrial plant material picked from the Lake Suigetsu sediment provides a reliable archive of atmospheric 14C, and therefore supports the site as being capable of providing a high-resolution extension to the “wholly terrestrial” (i.e. non-reservoir-corrected) calibration curve beyond its present 12,550 cal BP limit.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 53 , Issue 3 , 2011 , pp. 511 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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