The older, the better? On the radiocarbon dating of Upper Palaeolithic burials in Northern Eurasia and beyond

Abstract

Abstract

Removing contaminants: a restatement of the value of isolating single compounds for AMS dating

“…Cherry-picking one or two examples to support one's argument is not a scientifically rigorous approach. Kuzmin's (2019) misleading and circular article serves only to confuse rather than add clarity. Single amino acid or compound-specific methods are the future for reliably dating the Palaeolithic, where the effects of modern contamination are so acute.…”

“…Kuzmin (2019) uses the results of radiocarbon dating of Palaeolithic human remains from western Russia to raise questions about the reliability of dates based on ultrafiltration and single amino acids. He fails, however, to understand the chemistry underpinning and supporting the reliability of isolating hydroxyproline (Hyp) for AMS dating of bone.…”

The Extinction of Late Pleistocene Large Mammals from North Eurasian Perspective – Review of Ross D.E. MacPhee (with illustrations by Peter Schouten). End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World’s Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals. 2019. W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN: 978-0-39324-929-3; xii + 236 pages, with 83 illustrations and 1 table. List price $35 US (hardback). Photo courtesy of W. W. Norton & Co.

“…Numerous finds of mammoth bones with traces of human modification (see review: Agam and Barkai 2018) are not convincing because the scavenging and use of mammoth bones and tusks is well known (e.g. Kuzmin 2019Kuzmin : 1064.…”

Fast and slow science and the Palaeolithic dating game

“…For the last 50 000 years of the Upper Pleistocene (the latter part of the Middle Palaeolithic and the Upper Palaeolithic), radiocarbon dating—these days almost entirely undertaken with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS)—forms the most accurate and precise, and hence preferred, chronometric method. The above paper by Kuzmin (2019) reflects a recurring question in relation to this method—what kind of bone sample should produce the most accurate dates: those on general collagen or those on a specific single amino acid extracted from that collagen? The debate relates to whether the latter should be adopted, on the basis that, as this amino acid derives only from bone, the technique effectively eliminates any contamination that would affect the accuracy of the determined ages.…”