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Radiocarbon Dating of Ancient Canoes from Guangxi, China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2016

Yongjing Guan ,
Xiangdong Ruan ,
Zhaoming Xiong ,
Huijuan Wang  and
Filippo Terrasi
Yongjing Guan
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and GXU-NAOC Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
Xiangdong Ruan*
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and GXU-NAOC Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
Zhaoming Xiong
Affiliation:
Guangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Nanning 530023, China
Huijuan Wang
Affiliation:
Department of Physics and GXU-NAOC Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Guangxi University, Nanning 530004, China
Filippo Terrasi
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Sciences, Second University of Naples, Via Vivaldi 43, 81100 Caserta, Italy
*
2Corresponding author. Email: yjguan@gxu.edu.cn.
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Abstract

Several canoes were excavated from coastal rivers in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, southwest China. In order to confirm the age of the canoes, 6 samples were selected for radiocarbon dating from 3 canoes. The mean value of canoe NLJ was 365 ± 35 BP, and 2 samples from canoes MLJ and DFJ were 520 ± 21 and 499 ± 33 BP, respectively. The calendar ages cover a period from AD 1328 to 1641 at the 95% confidence level. These results disagree with previous studies that suggested canoes were only used over 1000 yr ago in China. We discuss the possible reasons for the results being younger than expected.

Type
Archaeology of Eurasia and Africa
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 55 , Issue 3: Proceedings of the 21st International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 2 of 2) , 2013 , pp. 1366 - 1370
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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