Radiocarbon Chronology

In this paper, we investigate the complexities of early Neolithic diet in the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) and post-LBK communities of central Europe. Despite regional and local instances of variation in subsistence activities, isotopic evidence suggests that diet was broadly similar across its distribution, perhaps even working to foster social relationships and community. We should be careful therefore not to conflate Neolithic subsistence activities and diet, but need to be alert to their complex and diverse relationship. This paper will draw on the emerging results of the project Counter Culture: investigating Neolithic social diversity (Arts and Humanities Research Council UK, grant number: AH/R002622/1, 2018-2020, PI: P. Bickle). This project is seeking to integrate existing and new isotope data and the results of dental calculus analysis with the refined radiocarbon chronologies now being produced for the early and middle Neolithic in central Europe (e.g. Denaire et al. 2017).

This paper discusses the chronology of burial grounds containing specific Seima-Turbino type bronze 11 weaponry (spears, knives, and celts). The " transcultural " Seima-Turbino phenomenon relates to a wide distribution 12 of specific objects found within the sites of different Bronze Age cultures in Eurasia, not immediately related to each 13 other. The majority of the Seima-Turbino objects represent occasional findings, and they are rarely recovered from 14 burial grounds. Here, we present a new set of 14 C dates from cemeteries in western Siberia, including the key Asian 15 site Rostovka, with the largest number of graves containing Seima-Turbino objects. Currently, the presented database 16 is the most extensive for the Seima-Turbino complexes. The resulting radiocarbon (14 C) chronology for the western 17 Siberian sites (22nd–20th centuries cal BC) is older than the existing chronology based on typological analysis 18 (16th–15th centuries BC) and some earlier 14 C dates for the Seima-Turbino sites in eastern Europe. Another impor-19 tant aspect of this work is 14 C dating of complexes within specific bronze objects—daggers with figured handles— 20 which some researchers have related to the Seima-Turbino type objects. These items are mostly represented by 21 occasional finds in Central Asia, however, in western Siberia these have been recovered from burials, too. The 22 14 C dating attributes these daggers to the end of the 3rd millennium cal BC, suggesting their similar timing to the 23 Seima-Turbino objects. Further research into freshwater reservoir offsets in the region is essential for a more reliable 24 reconstruction of the chronology of the Seima-Turbino phenomenon and the daggers with figured handles. 25

Existing radiocarbon ((14)C) dates on American mastodon (Mammut americanum) fossils from eastern Beringia (Alaska and Yukon) have been interpreted as evidence they inhabited the Arctic and Subarctic during Pleistocene full-glacial times (∼18,000 (14)C years B.P.). However, this chronology is inconsistent with inferred habitat preferences of mastodons and correlative paleoecological evidence. To establish a last appearance date (LAD) for M. americanum regionally, we obtained 53 new (14)C dates on 36 fossils, including specimens with previously published dates. Using collagen ultrafiltration and single amino acid (hydroxyproline) methods, these specimens consistently date to beyond or near the ∼50,000 y B.P. limit of (14)C dating. Some erroneously "young" (14)C dates are due to contamination by exogenous carbon from natural sources and conservation treatments used in museums. We suggest mastodons inhabited the high latitudes only during warm intervals, particularly the Last Interglacial [Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5] when boreal forests existed regionally. Our (14)C dataset suggests that mastodons were extirpated from eastern Beringia during the MIS 4 glacial interval (∼75,000 y ago), following the ecological shift from boreal forest to steppe tundra. Mastodons thereafter became restricted to areas south of the continental ice sheets, where they suffered complete extinction ∼10,000 (14)C years B.P. Mastodons were already absent from eastern Beringia several tens of millennia before the first humans crossed the Bering Isthmus or the onset of climate changes during the terminal Pleistocene. Local extirpations of mastodons and other megafaunal populations in eastern Beringia were asynchrononous and independent of their final extinction south of the continental ice sheets.

This paper presents a new series of AMS dates from the rock-shelter of Shan-Koba in the Crimean mountains (Ukraine). Four bone samples were selected at the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (Russian Federation), and AMS-dated at Groningen Isotopic Laboratory (Holland). The results show that the shelter was not “continuously” settled, as suggested by the excavators. In contrast they indicate that it was inhabited in well-defined periods between the end of the Palaeolithic
(Allerød interstadial) and the end of the Mesolithic (Atlantic).
Together with other radiocarbon dates recently obtained from the same sequence, as well as from Laspi 7 and Mirne, they help refine the absolute chronology of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene peopling of the north-western Black Sea region, and contribute to the study of the environmental and cultural changes that took place in the same territory at the boundary between the end of the Palaeolithic and the Atlantic climatic periods.
Ovaj rad predstavlja novu seriju AMS datuma iz pripećka Šan-Koba
u krimskim planinama (Ukrajina). Na Arheološkom institutu akademije znanosti u Sankt Peterburgu (Ruska Federacija) izabrana
su četiri uzorka kosti koja su datirana AMS-om u izotopskom laboratoriju u Gröningenu (Nizozemska). Rezultati pokazuju da pripećak nije bio „neprekidno“ naseljen, na što su ukazivali istraživači.
Suprotno tome, pokazuju da je bio nastanjen u precizno utvrđenim razdobljima od kraja paleolitika (interstadijal Allerød) do kraja mezolitika (atlansko klimatsko razdoblje). Zajedno s ostalim radiokarbonskim datumima nedavno dobivenim iz istog stratigrafskog slijeda, kao i iz Laspi 7 i Mirne, pomažu bolje utvrditi
apsolutnu kronologiju obitavanja ljudi u sjeverozapadnoj regiji Crnog mora u kasnom pleistocenu i ranom holocenu te doprinijeti proučavanju okolišnih i kulturnih promjena koje su se dogodile na tom području na prijelazu između kraja paleolitika i atlantskog klimatskog razdoblja.