Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Investigating the likelihood of a reservoir offset in the radiocarbon record for ancient Egypt

2009; Elsevier BV; Volume: 37; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jas.2009.09.003

1095-9238

Michael Dee, Fiona Brock, Stephen A. Harris, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Andrew Shortland, Thomas Higham, Joanne Rowland,

Paleopathology and ancient diseases

Some radiocarbon dates for ancient Egypt have been significantly offset from the established historical chronology (see Bonani et al., 2001). In this paper, short-lived plant species collected in Egypt between 1700 and 1900 AD were used to investigate the possibility that the radiocarbon record had been influenced by reservoir effects. AMS radiocarbon measurements were made on 66 known-age samples, resulting in an average offset from expected values of 19 years. The implications of this minor discrepancy on the likelihood of a reservoir process are discussed, and the agreement of the data with recent models of radiocarbon seasonality is also considered.