Radiocarbon Laboratory Core Support for Archaeometry

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With National Science Foundation support Dr. Long and his colleagues will continue their research both to improve the radiocarbon dating technique and to provide accurate dates at a reasonable cost and in reasonable time to the archaeological community. The laboratory will continue to seek out and analyze samples of anthropological significance. It will apply techniques which allow the dating of non-standard materials such as pollen and individual bone amino acids to such samples. It will also continue research to improve the dating technique itself and will focus on the cause, nature of impurities in benzene which is used in liquid scintillation counting. To work most effectively, archaeologists need to assign absolute ages to excavated materials and radiocarbon dating has provided the primary technique for accomplishing this goal. Organic materials such as charcoal dating to 40,000 years or less are routinely dated by this means and Dr. Long's laboratory is now able to extend the technique's range to ca. 70,000 years. The laboratory also has the ability both to analyze very small amounts of material and to purify contaminated remains such as bone. Through such dating work, the laboratory has addressed important anthropological questions such as when plants were first domesticated in the New World and thus shed light on the development of cultural complexity. This grant is important because it will permit the laboratory to continue both its service and method development functions. It will aid many archaeologists in their research.