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Credits & Sources

Archeologist and TBH Assistant Editor Emily McCuistion wrote Radiocarbon Dating Understood. The exhibit is based on Emily’s master’s thesis, The Camel of Time: Radiocarbon Dating the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, which was completed at Texas State University in 2019. TBH Editor Steve Black was Emily's graduate advisor and exhibit editor, and encouraged both thesis and exhibit projects.

Emily and Steve designed and developed the exhibit for the web, with assistance from Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Services (LAITS) at UT-Austin. TBH Associate Editor Heather Smith (Department of Anthropology, Texas State University) and Raymond Mauldin (Center for Archaeological Research, University of Texas-San Antonio) reviewed the draft and provided helpful suggestions for improvement.
E. Thomas Miller of Kerrville, Texas bequeathed support for this exhibit. Emily's thesis acknowledges many others who helped facilitate her radiocarbon research.

Animations of radiocarbon concepts used in the exhibit are courtesy of Maarten Blaauw, Department of Archaeology and Palaeoecology, School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen's University Belfast. Audio recordings of Willard Libby's 1948 presentation at the Viking Fund Supper Conference are courtesy of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc.

Print Sources

  1. Ambrose, Stanley H., and John Krigbaum 2003 Bone Chemistry and Bioarchaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22(3):193–199.
  2. Bayliss, Alex 2009 Rolling Out Revolution: Using Radiocarbon Dating in Archaeology. Radiocarbon 51(01):123–147.
    2015 Quality in Bayesian Chronological Models in Archaeology. World Archaeology 47(4):677–700.
  3. Brock, Fiona, Thomas Higham, Peter Ditchfield, and Christopher Bronk Ramsey 2010 Current Pretreatment Methods for AMS Radiocarbon Dating at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU). Radiocarbon 52(01):103–112.
  4. Bronk Ramsey, C. 2008 Radiocarbon Dating: Revolutions in Understanding. Archaeometry 50(2):249–275.
    2009 Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51(1):337–360.
    2019 Analysis Details. Electronic document, https://c14.arch.ox.ac.uk/oxcalhelp/hlp_analysis_detail.html, accessed October 8, 2019.
  5. Buck, Caitlin E., and Miguel Juarez 2017 Bayesian Radiocarbon Modelling for Beginners. arXiv:1704.07141 [stat].
  6. Griffiths, Seren 2014 Simulations and Outputs. Radiocarbon 56(02):871–876.
    2017 We’re All Cultural Historians Now: Revolutions in Understanding Archaeological Theory and Scientific Dating. Radiocarbon 59(05):1347–1357.
  7. Hamilton, W. Derek, and Anthony M. Krus 2018 The Myths and Realities of Bayesian Chronological Modeling Revealed. American Antiquity 83(02):187–203.
  8. Harris, D. R., H. E. Gove, and P. Damon 1987 The Impact on Archaeology of Radiocarbon Dating by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry [and Discussion]. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 323(1569):23–43.
  9. Kamen, Martin D. 1963 The Early History of Carbon-14. Journal of Chemical Education 40(5):234.
  10. Lohse, Jon C., Brendan J. Culleton, Stephen L. Black, and Douglas J. Kennett 2014 A Precise Chronology of Middle to Late Holocene Bison Exploitation in the Far Southern Great Plains. Journal of Texas Archeology and History 1: 94–126.
  11. Lohse, Jon C., Stephen L. Black, and Laly M. Cholak 2014 Toward an Improved Archaic Radiocarbon Chronology for Central Texas Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 85: 259–126.
  12. Miller, Myles R., Tim B. Graves, Moira Ernst, and Michael Stowe 2011 Burned Rock Middens of the Southern Sacramento Mountains, GMI No. 782EP. Geo-Marine, Inc., Texas.
  13. McCuistion, Emily R. 2019 The Camel of Time: Radiocarbon Dating the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. Download
  14. Olsen, Jesper, Jan Heinemeier, Harald Lübke, Friedrich Lüth, and Thomas Terberger 2010 Dietary Habits and Freshwater Reservoir Effects in Bones from a Neolithic NE German Cemetery. Radiocarbon 52(02):635–644.
  15. Olsen, Jesper, Jan Heinemeier, Harald Lübke, Friedrich Lüth, and Thomas Terberger 2010 Dietary Habits and Freshwater Reservoir Effects in Bones from a Neolithic NE German Cemetery. Radiocarbon 52(02):635–644.
  16. Potter, Ben A., and Joshua D. Reuther 2012 High Resolution Radiocarbon Dating at the Gerstle River Site, Central Alaska. American Antiquity 77(1):71–98.
  17. Reimer, P., Austin, W., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Blackwell, P., Bronk Ramsey, C., Butzin, M., Cheng, H., Edwards, R., Friedrich, M., Grootes, P., Guilderson, T., Hajdas, I., Heaton, T., Hogg, A., Hughen, K., Kromer, B., Manning, S., Muscheler, R., Palmer, J., Pearson, C., van der Plicht, J., Reimer, R., Richards, D., Scott, E., Southon, J., Turney, C., Wacker, L., Adolphi, F., Büntgen, U., Capano, M., Fahrni, S., Fogtmann-Schulz, A., Friedrich, R., Köhler, P., Kudsk, S., Miyake, F., Olsen, J., Reinig, F., Sakamoto, M., Sookdeo, A., & Talamo, S. 2020 The IntCal20 Northern Hemisphere radiocarbon age calibration curve (0–55 cal kBP). Radiocarbon 62.
  18. Stuiver, Minze, and Henry A. Polach 1977 Discussion Reporting of 14C Data. Radiocarbon 19(03):355–363.
  19. Stuiver, Minze and Paula Reimer 2016 MS Excel spreadsheet for δ13C corrections. Download
  20. Taylor, R.E., and Ofer Bar-Yosef 2014 Radiocarbon Dating: An Archaeological Perspective. Left Coast Press. Walnut, California.
  21. Turpin, Solveig A., and Herbert H. Eling, Jr. 2017 An Expanded Inventory of Radiocarbon Dates from the Lower Pecos Region of Texas and the Northern Mexican States of Coahuila and Nuevo Leon. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 88:105–131.
  22. Van Strydonck, Mark 2017 A Personal Reflection on 40 Years of Radiocarbon Dating and Archaeology. Radiocarbon 59(05):1241–1250.
  23. Whittle, Alasdair, Frances Healy, and Alex Bayliss (editors) 2011 Gathering Time: Dating the Early Neolithic Enclosures of Southern Britain and Ireland. Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK.
  24. Wong, Corinne I., Jay L. Banner, and MaryLynn Musgrove 2015 Holocene Climate Variability in Texas, USA: An Integration of Existing Paleoclimate Data and Modeling with a New, High-resolution Speleothem Record. Quaternary Science Reviews 127:155–173.
  25. Wood, Rachel 2015 From Revolution to Convention: The Past, Present and Future of Radiocarbon Dating. Journal of Archaeological Science 56:61–72.

Links

  1. Radiocarbon Journal Founded in 1959, Radiocarbon is the international journal of record for technical and interpretive articles and date lists relevant to 14C and other radioisotopes and techniques used in archaeological, geophysical, oceanographic, and related dating.
  2. Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database (CARD) CARD is a compilation of radiocarbon data primarily from archaeological sites in North America, which is continually growing as archeologists submit new data. CARD also includes some samples from paleontological and geological contexts, and is expanding to include Central and South American radiocarbon data.
  3. NOVA: Radioactive Decay of Carbon-14 In this video excerpt from NOVA: "Hunting the Elements," New York Times technology columnist David Pogue explores how isotopes of carbon can be used to determine the age of once-living matter.
  4. OxCal The OxCal program provides radiocarbon calibration and analysis of archaeological and environmental chronological information. It is not the only calibration program, but it is one of the most popular programs for calibrating and analyzing radiocarbon data.
  5. Part I and Part II of an interview of Willard Libby by Greg Marlowe on 1979 April 12. From the Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA.
  6. Maarten Blaauw's radiocarbon animations Radiocarbon animations, including several animations not used in this exhibit, can be viewed here.