Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
The recommended Belfast/Seattle radiocarbon calibration (Pearson 1987) coming into common use gives us ‘good’ portions, where the calibration curve has a shape that aids in refining dates, and ‘sloughs of despond’ - the periods when the shape of the curve is less helpful. Two deep sloughs arefound in the last few centuries ncand in the 3rd millennium BC. Here, a series of new determinations are presented for Bell Beakers in Spain, falling in the 3rd-millennium slough, and it is shown what can and cannot be learnt from these and their calibration.