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The Radiocarbon Method of Age Determination*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

W. S. Broecker
Affiliation:
Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University Palisades, N.Y.
J. L. Kulp
Affiliation:
Lamont Geological Observatory, Columbia University Palisades, N.Y.

Extract

Five years after the first publication of age measurements by the radiocarbon method (Arnold and Libby 1951) the method has been established as a powerful technique in the study of archaeology. Lists of radiocarbon dates have been published by a number of laboratories (Libby 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955; Kulp 1951, 1952; Broecker and Kulp 1956; Suess 1954; Ruben and Suess 1955; Blau, Deevey, and Gross 1953; Preston, Person, and Deevey 1955; Ralph 1955; Anderson, Levi, and Tauber 1953). A few scientists feel that the radiocarbon dates contradict archaeological or geological theories which they regard as wellfounded and have suggested that because of this the method is invalid.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1956

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Footnotes

*

Lamont Geological Observatory Contribution No. 192. The work described in this report was supported under National Science Foundation Grant 1334. In preliminary form this paper was read at The Great Basin Archaeological Conference, Los Angeles, in August, 1955.

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