Radiocarbon dates, Mya arenaria phase of the Champlain Sea

1969 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Elson

The history of the Champlain Sea is divided into an early cold period of subarctic water termed the Hiatella phase that lasted from its inception, about 11 800 years ago (Two Creeks time), until a low water phase about 10 800 years ago (Younger Dryas or Valders time). This was followed by an interval of warmer boreal water, here called the Mya arenaria phase, that lasted from about 10 800 years ago until 10 200 years ago or the end of the Champlain Sea.General descriptions, previously unpublished, of Groningen dates GrN 2031 (10 870 ± 100 B.P.), GrN 2032(10 450 ± 80 B.P.), GrN 2034 (10 590 ± 100 B.P.), and GrN 2035 (10 330 ± 100 B.P.) are presented. These dates record the Mya arenaria phase of the Champlain Sea, which may have had an initial rising (transgressive) phase, though the stratigraphic evidence, supported by three sets of radiocarbon dates, is not wholly conclusive.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurélie Salavert ◽  
Antoine Zazzo ◽  
Lucie Martin ◽  
Ferran Antolín ◽  
Caroline Gauthier ◽  
...  

AbstractThis paper aims to define the first chrono-cultural framework on the domestication and early diffusion of the opium poppy using small-sized botanical remains from archaeological sites, opening the way to directly date minute short-lived botanical samples. We produced the initial set of radiocarbon dates directly from the opium poppy remains of eleven Neolithic sites (5900–3500 cal BCE) in the central and western Mediterranean, northwestern temperate Europe, and the western Alps. When possible, we also dated the macrobotanical remains originating from the same sediment sample. In total, 22 samples were taken into account, including 12 dates directly obtained from opium poppy remains. The radiocarbon chronology ranges from 5622 to 4050 cal BCE. The results show that opium poppy is present from at least the middle of the sixth millennium in the Mediterranean, where it possibly grew naturally and was cultivated by pioneer Neolithic communities. Its dispersal outside of its native area was early, being found west of the Rhine in 5300–5200 cal BCE. It was introduced to the western Alps around 5000–4800 cal BCE, becoming widespread from the second half of the fifth millennium. This research evidences different rhythms in the introduction of opium poppy in western Europe.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Dorota Dzierzbicka ◽  
Katarzyna Danys

ABSTRACT The paper presents and discusses a series of radiocarbon (14C) dates from a medieval Nubian monastery found on Kom H of Old Dongola, the capital of the kingdom of Makuria located in modern-day Sudan. The monastery was founded in the 6th–7th century AD and although it probably ceased to function in the 14th century, the site remained occupied until the beginning of the 15th century. The investigated courtyard of the monastery was in use from the 11th to the 14th century, as indicated by the ceramics and 14C analysis results presented here. The dates under consideration are the first published series of 14C dates from this site, which is of crucial importance for historical research on medieval Nubian Christianity and monasticism. They permit to begin building an absolute chronological framework for research on the archaeological finds from the site and region. A group of finds in particular need of such a framework are ceramics, and the implications of the 14C dates for pottery assemblages found in the dated contexts are discussed. The conclusions summarize the significance of the datings for the history of the site.


2006 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kaiser ◽  
A. Barthelmes ◽  
S. Czakó Pap ◽  
A. Hilgers ◽  
W. Janke ◽  
...  

AbstractA new site with Lateglacial palaeosols covered by 0.8 - 2.4 m thick aeolian sands is presented. The buried soils were subjected to multidisciplinary analyses (pedology, micromorphology, geochronology, dendrology, palynology, macrofossils). The buried soil cover comprises a catena from relatively dry (’Nano’-Podzol, Arenosol) via moist (Histic Gleysol, Gleysol) to wet conditions (Histosol). Dry soils are similar to the so-called Usselo soil, as described from sites in NW Europe and central Poland. The buried soil surface covers ca. 3.4 km2. Pollen analyses date this surface into the late Allerød. Due to a possible contamination by younger carbon, radiocarbon dates are too young. OSL dates indicate that the covering by aeolian sands most probably occurred during the Younger Dryas. Botanical analyses enables the reconstruction of a vegetation pattern typical for the late Allerød. Large wooden remains of pine and birch were recorded.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bárbara Moguel ◽  
Liseth Pérez ◽  
Luis David Alcaraz ◽  
Socorro Lozano-García ◽  
Luis Herrera-Estrella ◽  
...  

<p>For decades, paleoecological studies in lake sediments have focused on reconstructing the environments of the past and explaining phenomena linked to climatic variations. Recent advances in high-throughput DNA sequencing have allowed access to environmental DNA (eDNA) and ancient sedimentary DNA (sedaDNA) as a new and efficient proxy for past and present biodiversity. The basin of Mexico (BM) is located in the central part of the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt at 2,200 m a.s.l.; with the southern portion harboring the Chalco sub-basin. Lake Chalco is one of the last remaining natural aquatic ecosystems within the ever-expanding urban area surrounding Mexico City. The paleoenvironmental history of this lake has been previously characterized using sedimentological and geochemical proxies, as well as preserved microfossils (diatoms, pollen) with a temporal framework based on multiple radiocarbon dates. However, information for the remaining taxonomic groups and metabolic pathways remained unexplored. Here, we present the first metagenomics-based study for the Holocene in a high-altitude lake in Central Mexico –Lake Chalco. We explored the relationship between the lake’s paleoenvironmental condition and estimations of taxonomic and metabolic profiles across the sedimentary sequence (2.5 meters long). Multiple biological and abiotic variables revealed three main environmental phases: 1) a cool freshwater lake (FW1: 11,500-11,000 cal years BP), 2) a warm hyposaline lake (HS2: 11,000-6,000 cal years BP), and 3) a temperate, subsaline lake (SS3, <6,000 cal years BP). We describe the structure of the microbiota community and taxonomy richness turnover in the three Holocene paleoenvironmental phases. During the past 12 000 years BP the most abundant domains in Lake Chalco sediments were Bacteria, followed by Archaea, and Eukarya (36,722 genera). The analysis of functional proteins showed high biodiversity with a total of 27,636,243 proteins identified, but it was only possible to annotate 3,227,398 of them. Also, we identified several genes associated with some relevant pathways, such as methanogenesis. Altogether, this study allowed us to reconstruct the natural history of lake Chalco and its surroundings.</p>


1996 ◽  
Vol 33 (7) ◽  
pp. 1075-1086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Bell

The last glaciation of Fosheim Peninsula is reconstructed on the basis of landform and sediment mapping and associated radiocarbon dates. Ice growth involved the expansion of cirque glaciers and accumulation on upland surfaces that are now ice free. Limited ice buildup, despite lowering of the paleoglaciation level by 700–800 m, is attributed to the hyperaridity of the region during glacial conditions. Marine deposits in formerly submerged basins beyond the ice margins are interpreted to represent (i) sedimentation caused by local ice buildup and marine transgression by 10.6 ka BP, (ii) increased ablation and glacier runoff [Formula: see text]9.5 ka BP, and (iii) marine regression during the Holocene. Holocene marine limit reaches a maximum elevation of approximately 150 m asl along northern Eureka Sound and Greely Fiord and descends southeastwards to 139–142 m asl near the Sawtooth Mountains. A synchronous marine limit is implied where the last ice limit was inland of the sea. The magnitude and pattern of Holocene emergence cannot be fully explained by the glacioisostatic effects of the small ice load during the last glaciation of the region. Deglaciation of the peninsula was underway by 9.5 ka BP; however, local ice caps may have persisted through the wannest period of the Holocene until 6–5 ka BP. This was likely a function of reduced sea ice conditions and increased moisture availability which benefited low-lying coastal icefields, but had negligible effect on interior highland ice caps.


2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beat Goldstein ◽  
Fortunat Joos ◽  
Thomas F. Stocker

1972 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
A Weidick

Post-Wisconsinian uplift of West, North and East Greenland has been estimated on the basis of information in current literature and compared to the data collected by the author in central West Greenland. For West and North Greenland the dated uplift allows an estimate to be made of the age of former shore-lines, which in turn have been used to date the stages of the extent of the Inland lce. The results have been compared with published information on the age of glacial stages in East Greenland. The estimated ages of the ice margin stages imply a history of deglaciation in West (and North?) Greenland comparable to that of North America. In both areas the major deglaciation took place after the Younger Dryas and a marked halt took place in Boreal times. It is possibie that the history of East Greenland is more closely related to that of Scandinavia where a widespread deglaciation took place prior to the Younger Dryas. The deglaciation of North Greenland was interrupted by a marked readvance or readvances during the climatic optimum. It is possible that the northward shift of the low pressure centres during this period led to an increased accumulation on the northern part of the Inland lce.


2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priya Moorjani ◽  
Sriram Sankararaman ◽  
Qiaomei Fu ◽  
Molly Przeworski ◽  
Nick J Patterson ◽  
...  

The study of human evolution has been revolutionized by inferences from ancient DNA analyses. Key to these is the reliable estimation of the age of ancient specimens. The current best practice is radiocarbon dating, which relies on characterizing the decay of radioactive carbon isotope (14C), and is applicable for dating up to 50,000-year-old samples. Here, we introduce a new genetic method that uses recombination clock for dating. The key idea is that an ancient genome has evolved less than the genomes of extant individuals. Thus, given a molecular clock provided by the steady accumulation of recombination events, one can infer the age of the ancient genome based on the number of missing years of evolution. To implement this idea, we take advantage of the shared history of Neanderthal gene flow into non-Africans that occurred around 50,000 years ago. Using the Neanderthal ancestry decay patterns, we estimate the Neanderthal admixture time for both ancient and extant samples. The difference in these admixture dates then provides an estimate of the age of the ancient genome. We show that our method provides reliable results in simulations. We apply our method to date five ancient Eurasian genomes with radiocarbon dates ranging between 12,000 to 45,000 years and recover consistent age estimates. Our method provides a complementary approach for dating ancient human samples and is applicable to ancient non-African genomes with Neanderthal ancestry. Extensions of this methodology that use older shared events may be able to date ancient genomes that fall beyond the radiocarbon frontier.


1989 ◽  
Vol 26 (9) ◽  
pp. 1834-1841 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. F. Rannie ◽  
L. H. Thorleifson ◽  
J. T. Teller

The Portage la Prairie alluvial fan was constructed by numerous successive paleochannels of the Assiniboine River along the western side of the Lake Agassiz basin as the level of the lake rapidly declined beginning 9500 years ago. The history of the paleochannels during the first several thousand years is not known. Paleochannel morphologies and cross-cutting relations, soil maturity, and radiocarbon dates, however, indicate that by 6000–7000 years ago flow was northward into Lake Manitoba. This direction was maintained until about 3000 years ago, when avulsion redirected the Assiniboine eastward to the Red River near Winnipeg. The morphologies of the paleochannels suggest that channel-forming discharges and sediment loads of the ancestral rivers have not differed significantly from the modern values despite palynological evidence that the climate was warmer and drier during much of the Holocene.


Radiocarbon ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 933-941 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina P Panyushkina ◽  
Steven W Leavitt ◽  
Alex Wiedenhoeft ◽  
Sarah Noggle ◽  
Brandon Curry ◽  
...  

The abrupt millennial-scale changes associated with the Younger Dryas (YD) event (“chronozone”) near the dawn of the Holocene are at least hemispheric, if not global, in extent. Evidence for the YD cold excursion is abundant in Europe but fairly meager in central North America. We are engaged in an investigation of high-resolution environmental changes in mid-North America over several millennia (about 10,000 to 14,000 BP) during the Late Glacial–Early Holocene transition, including the YD interval. Several sites containing logs or stumps have been identified and we are in the process of initial sampling or re-sampling them for this project. Here, we report on a site in central Illinois containing a deposit of logs initially thought to be of YD age preserved in alluvial sands. The assemblage of wood represents hardwood (angiosperm) trees, and the ring-width characteristics are favorable to developing formal tree-ring chronologies. However, 4 new radiocarbon dates indicate deposition of wood may have taken place over at least 8000 14C yr (6000–14,000 BP). This complicates the effort to develop a single floating chronology of several hundred years at this site, but it may provide wood from a restricted region over a long period of time from which to develop a sequence of floating chronologies, the timing of deposition and preservation of which could be related to paleoclimatic events and conditions.


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