7. Where to Get Advice and Information
A: Historic England (HE)
The first point of contact for general archaeological science enquiries is the HE science advisors, including advice on scientific dating and Bayesian chronological modelling. HE science advisors can provide independent, non-commercial advice. They are based in the HE local offices.
Specific advice on scientific dating and Bayesian chronological modelling can be sought from the Historic England Scientific Dating Team:
Historic England
Cannon Bridge House
25 Dowgate Hill
London EC4R 2YA
Email: [email protected]
B. Scientific dating laboratories
All laboratories will be happy to advise on the technical aspects of applying their technique to Pleistocene deposits. They can advise on the retrieval and selection of suitable samples, suitable storage and packaging, and the methods of sample preparation and dating used in their facility.
Laboratories put a great deal of skill and effort into dating the samples sent to them accurately. They welcome the opportunity to provide guidance on sample selection to ensure that together you achieve the best dating possible for your samples.
C. On-line resources
Radiocarbon dates
The Project Radiocarbon on-line database contains details of many measurements undertaken on archaeological samples from England, Wales, Scotland, and the island of Ireland.
Basic information on 30,517 measurements from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland gathered by Bevan et al. (2017).
Basic information on 45,495 measurements from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland gathered by Bird et al. (2022).
Details of measurements undertaken by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit can be found in their on-line database, and published in a series of datelists in the journal Archaeometry.
Other datelists, particularly for measurements undertaken before c. 1980, can be found in the journal Radiocarbon.
Radiocarbon calibration databases
The calibration curves that are currently internationally agreed are available from IntCal and this is the data included in them.
A database of marine reservoir values is provided by the 14CHRONO Centre, Queen’s University, Belfast.
Palaeomagnetism
GEOMAGIA50 — a database providing access to published archaeomagnetic/volcanic and sediment palaeomagnetic and chronological data for the past 50 ka.
PINT — the Absolute Palaeointensity (PINT) Database, a catalogue of all absolute palaeointensity data with ages > 50 ka that have been published in the peer-reviewed literature.
MagIC — Magnetic Information Consortium (MagIC), an open community digital data archive for rock and palaeomagnetic data.
Tephrochronology
Resources containing geochemical data associated with tephra are available on-line. No single resource is comprehensive and access to original published datasets, such as within journal articles, is often required to supplement these resources.
RESET — Derived from the ‘Response of Humans to Abrupt Environmental Transitions’ (RESET) project, a database has been made available containing information on occurrences and chemical compositions of glass shards from tephra and cryptotephra deposits found across Europe. The data include information from the RESET project itself and from the published literature. In addition to these data, RESET also contains a series of tools for the analysis of these data, including statistical approaches to evaluate the likelihood of tephra compositions matched. The database is described in Bronk Ramsey et al. (2015b).
Tephrabase — a database focused on providing geochemical, chronological and spatial data for tephra sites, predominantly for sites in Iceland and north-west Europe.
EarthChem — a community-driven project facilitating the compilation and dissemination of geochemical data of all types, including tephra. It is a global database and therefore has much broader coverage than RESET.
GVP — The Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program (GVP) contains a comprehensive database of global volcanic activity, cataloguing Holocene and Pleistocene volcanoes, and eruptions.
Relevant software
Radiocarbon dating calibration
A variety of freely downloadable software is available for radiocarbon calibration:
Calib — on-line and downloadable versions (described in Stuiver and Reimer 1993).
IOSACal — open-source radiocarbon calibration.
MatCal — open-source Bayesian 14C age calibration in Matlab (described in Lougheed and Obrochta 2016).
rcarbon — downloadable software for the calibration and analysis of radiocarbon dates, which runs in the R software environment.
Trapped charge dating calculations
The online Dose Rate and Age Calculator (DRAC) is widely used by the luminescence dating community and is described by Durcan et al. (2015).
Chronological modelling
A variety of freely downloadable software is available for chronological modelling. Some packages enable the construction of a wide range of models; others are more specialised.
(a) Flexible Bayesian Chronological Modelling
BCal — online program (described in Buck et al. (1999).
OxCal — online and downloadable versions available (described in Bronk Ramsey 1995, 1998, 2001, 2008, 2009a–b, 2017; Bronk Ramsey et al. 2001; 2010; and Bronk Ramsey and Lee 2013).
(b) Specialist Bayesian Chronological Modelling
rBacon — downloadable package for flexible Bayesian age-depth modelling, which runs in the R software environment (described in Blaauw and Christen 2011).
Bchron — downloadable package for calibration of radiocarbon dates together with routines for age-depth modelling and relative sea level rate estimation, which runs in the R software environment (described in Haslett and Parnell 2008; and Parnell and Gehrels 2015).
ChronoModel — an open-source downloadable application that provides tools for constructing chronologies (described in Lanos and Dufresne 2024; and Lanos and Philippe 2017; 2018).
Coffee — downloadable package that uses Bayesian methods to enforce the chronological ordering of radiocarbon dates, which runs in the R software environment.
(c) Classical statistical modelling
Clam — downloadable software for ‘classical’, non-Bayesian, age-depth modelling, which runs in the R software environment (described in Blaauw 2010).
