17th October 2011, 04:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 17th October 2011, 05:21 PM by P Prentice.)
maurizio feo Wrote:OK, thank you both for the encouragement...
My question is about a paper I found in the Internet. It' by Robert Tykot and it's about carbon dating of a number of different sardinian locations: its title is: "Social Dynamics of the prehistoric central mediterranean" (Univ. London - 1999)
In the table reporting his (and other researchers') results there appear 7 columns, some of which I badly need help with (because I cannot find any agreement between this table and the Author's final conclusions)...
From left to right they read: (1) Site, (2) Context, (3) Lab N?, (4) 14C age, (5) Error, (6) 2sigma Calibrated age range (CALIB 3,0,3), (7)Reference. I do not think that column (3) and (7) are of any interest here and column (1) and (2) only serve the purpose of making the example complete.
In particular, what baffles me is the actual final dating of nuragic towers.
One example: (1) Nuraghe Duos Nuraghes, (2) Tower A floor , (3) I-14,774, (4) 4180, (5)+- 320, (6) cal. BC3333 (3075, 3067,3040) 2915, (7) MMA 3(1992): 278.
According to my (scarce and primitive) understanding, I should subtract 1995 from 4180 and then allow for a mistake of plus or minus 320 yrs.: this procedure should yeld two hypothetical dates (in my reckoning: 1905 - 2545) high and low limits to which the building of the tower may be attributed. In column (6) I dont find any of these numbers, though. Not that this bothers me, really, though if any of you can explain my mistake I would very much appreciate it...
My final question is, in fact:
How does this table (existing for many different Nuraghi, of course, with slightly different figures) accord with the Author's conclusions that attribute the prehistoric period Nuragic I to 1600-1300 a.C.?
Thank you in advance, for your patience
given calib uses BP dates then 4180 means before 1950 and this is only 60 years ago so wont much figure
the calibrated range you state as 3333 BC - 2915 BC and is no way anything to do with 1600 -1300 bc (uncalibrated) so i can only summise that these are calibrated 3333 - 2915 BP which puts you in the right ball-park (correct BC date)
what you dont say is if any of the dates in the table have been combined in a sequence to allow one to influence another
remember BC is calibrated and bc is not
this being said the contentious Su Nuraxi date of i believ 1478 BC is on a single piece of olive wood found in the structure and only dates the wood not the structure
good luck
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers