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Should Archaeologists Care about 14C Intercomparisons? Why? A Summary Report on SIRI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2017

E M Scott ,
P Naysmith  and
G T Cook
E M Scott*
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QW, UK
P Naysmith
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride, Glasgow, G75 0QF, Scotland, UK
G T Cook
Affiliation:
Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre, Scottish Enterprise Technology Park, East Kilbride, Glasgow, G75 0QF, Scotland, UK
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

Radiocarbon (14C) dating is used widely in many projects as a basis for the creation and testing of chronological constructs. 14C measurements are by their nature complex and the degree of sample pretreatment varies considerably depending on the material. Within the United Kingdom and Europe, there are a number of well-established laboratories and increasingly, archaeologists are not just commissioning new dates, but also using statistical modelling of assemblages of dates, perhaps measured in different laboratories, to provide formal date estimates for their sites. The issue of comparability of measurements (and thus bias, accuracy and precision of measurement) from the diverse laboratories is one which has been the focus of some attention both within the 14C community and the wider user communities for some time. As a result of this but also as part of laboratory benchmarking and quality assurance, the 14C community has undertaken a wide-scale, far-reaching, and evolving program of intercomparisons, to the benefit of laboratories and users alike. This paper summarizes the most recent exercise, the Sixth International Radiocarbon Intercomparison (SIRI).

Keywords

consensus valuesintercomparison
Type
Method Development
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 59 , Special Issue 5: 8th International Symposium, Edinburgh, 27 June – 1 July, 2016 Part 1 of 2 , October 2017 , pp. 1589 - 1596
Copyright
© 2017 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 8th Radiocarbon & Archaeology Symposium, Edinburgh, UK, 27 June–1 July 2016

References

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