An Assessment of Marine Reservoir Corrections for Radiocarbon Dates on Walrus from the Foxe Basin Region of Arctic Canada
ABSTRACT Archaeological sites in the Canadian Arctic often contain substantial quantities of marine mammal bones and in some cases completely lack terrestrial mammal bones. A distrust of radiocarbon ( 14 C) dates on marine mammal bones among Arctic archaeologists has caused many sites to be insuffic...
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Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
2018
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Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/rdc.2018.50 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0033822218000504 |
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crcambridgeupr:10.1017/rdc.2018.50 2024-09-15T18:01:46+00:00 An Assessment of Marine Reservoir Corrections for Radiocarbon Dates on Walrus from the Foxe Basin Region of Arctic Canada Dyke, Arthur S Savelle, James M Szpak, Paul Southon, John R Howse, Lesley Desrosiers, Pierre M Kotar, Kathryn 2018 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/rdc.2018.50 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0033822218000504 en eng Cambridge University Press (CUP) https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms Radiocarbon volume 61, issue 1, page 67-81 ISSN 0033-8222 1945-5755 journal-article 2018 crcambridgeupr https://doi.org/10.1017/rdc.2018.50 2024-07-17T04:03:34Z ABSTRACT Archaeological sites in the Canadian Arctic often contain substantial quantities of marine mammal bones and in some cases completely lack terrestrial mammal bones. A distrust of radiocarbon ( 14 C) dates on marine mammal bones among Arctic archaeologists has caused many sites to be insufficiently dated. The goal of this study was to investigate the marine reservoir effect on Atlantic walrus in the Foxe Basin region of the Canadian Arctic through a two-pronged approach: dating of live-harvested specimens of known age collected prior to AD 1955 and dating of pairs of animal remains (walrus and caribou) from stratigraphically contemporaneous levels within archaeological features. 14 C dates on pre-bomb, live-harvested walrus indicate that a ΔR value of 160±50 yr be used in calibrating dates on walrus from this region. These results differed significantly from a similar set of pre-bomb mollusks, which argues against applying mollusk-based corrections to marine mammals. The results of comparative dating of caribou and walrus from archaeological features provided maximum estimates of reservoir ages that were more varied than the directly measured ages. Although about half of inferred ΔR values overlap the museum specimen results, the others indicate that the assumption of contemporaneity does not hold true. Article in Journal/Newspaper caribou Foxe Basin walrus* Cambridge University Press Radiocarbon 61 1 67 81 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Cambridge University Press |
op_collection_id |
crcambridgeupr |
language |
English |
description |
ABSTRACT Archaeological sites in the Canadian Arctic often contain substantial quantities of marine mammal bones and in some cases completely lack terrestrial mammal bones. A distrust of radiocarbon ( 14 C) dates on marine mammal bones among Arctic archaeologists has caused many sites to be insufficiently dated. The goal of this study was to investigate the marine reservoir effect on Atlantic walrus in the Foxe Basin region of the Canadian Arctic through a two-pronged approach: dating of live-harvested specimens of known age collected prior to AD 1955 and dating of pairs of animal remains (walrus and caribou) from stratigraphically contemporaneous levels within archaeological features. 14 C dates on pre-bomb, live-harvested walrus indicate that a ΔR value of 160±50 yr be used in calibrating dates on walrus from this region. These results differed significantly from a similar set of pre-bomb mollusks, which argues against applying mollusk-based corrections to marine mammals. The results of comparative dating of caribou and walrus from archaeological features provided maximum estimates of reservoir ages that were more varied than the directly measured ages. Although about half of inferred ΔR values overlap the museum specimen results, the others indicate that the assumption of contemporaneity does not hold true. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Dyke, Arthur S Savelle, James M Szpak, Paul Southon, John R Howse, Lesley Desrosiers, Pierre M Kotar, Kathryn |
spellingShingle |
Dyke, Arthur S Savelle, James M Szpak, Paul Southon, John R Howse, Lesley Desrosiers, Pierre M Kotar, Kathryn An Assessment of Marine Reservoir Corrections for Radiocarbon Dates on Walrus from the Foxe Basin Region of Arctic Canada |
author_facet |
Dyke, Arthur S Savelle, James M Szpak, Paul Southon, John R Howse, Lesley Desrosiers, Pierre M Kotar, Kathryn |
author_sort |
Dyke, Arthur S |
title |
An Assessment of Marine Reservoir Corrections for Radiocarbon Dates on Walrus from the Foxe Basin Region of Arctic Canada |
title_short |
An Assessment of Marine Reservoir Corrections for Radiocarbon Dates on Walrus from the Foxe Basin Region of Arctic Canada |
title_full |
An Assessment of Marine Reservoir Corrections for Radiocarbon Dates on Walrus from the Foxe Basin Region of Arctic Canada |
title_fullStr |
An Assessment of Marine Reservoir Corrections for Radiocarbon Dates on Walrus from the Foxe Basin Region of Arctic Canada |
title_full_unstemmed |
An Assessment of Marine Reservoir Corrections for Radiocarbon Dates on Walrus from the Foxe Basin Region of Arctic Canada |
title_sort |
assessment of marine reservoir corrections for radiocarbon dates on walrus from the foxe basin region of arctic canada |
publisher |
Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/rdc.2018.50 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0033822218000504 |
genre |
caribou Foxe Basin walrus* |
genre_facet |
caribou Foxe Basin walrus* |
op_source |
Radiocarbon volume 61, issue 1, page 67-81 ISSN 0033-8222 1945-5755 |
op_rights |
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1017/rdc.2018.50 |
container_title |
Radiocarbon |
container_volume |
61 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
67 |
op_container_end_page |
81 |
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1810438841148899328 |