Quaternary geochronology

Methods for Bayesian statistical analysis of stratigraphically related radiocarbon dates have been in use for over a decade. This paper extends these techniques to stratigraphically related ESR dates, allowing estimation of the dates of events not directly dated. A hierarchical model of the uncertainties in ESR dating is developed, to account for the correlation of error terms between samples. Using the new method, an analysis is made of the dating at Border Cave, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa. The results for individual dates and the dating of layer boundaries are more precise than previously obtained. The hominid fossils BC1 and BC2 are placed at either 71–91 ka (95% highest posterior density—hpd) or 152–171 ka (95% hpd) depending on the stratigraphic provenance assigned. BC3 is dated to 66–90 ka and BC5 to 61–72 ka (both 95% hpd). The estimated duration of the Howieson's Poort industry at Border Cave is demonstrated to have significant uncertainty, and the ESR dates, even with the increased precision of this analysis, are unable to decide between hypotheses that the industry lasted 10 ka and that it lasted 20 ka.

Abstract

The archaeological excavation of the Puente de los Tres Ojos site, next to Cerro Negro Street (Madrid), has provided new data that has allowed us to go in depth into the human settlement and the palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of the old Abroñigal stream valley, whose fluvial course worked as a tributary of the Manzanares River probably from before the Late Pleistocene up to the second half of the XXth century. In this paper we present the geomorphological and chronostratigraphic data of the excavated layers, documenting the various sequences of the fluvial and alluvial deposits that have filled the right bank of the Abroñigal valley bottom within its lower stretch. A large collection of lithic pieces has been obtained during the excavation works, most of which have been found within medium energy deposits of sands and gravels, being the rest associated to argillaceous slimes and thin sand deposits. The majority of the lithic collection responds to technical systems of the Middle Palaeolithic, although it is noteworthy the testimonial presence of pieces belonging to the Upper Palaeolithic, as well as mammal faunal remains from the Late Pleistocene. The dates obtained through OSL place the chronology of the deposit between approximately 14,400 and 11,170 years BP.

In present Quaternary research, there is a dominant focus upon learning about the past using biophysical proxies, as well as mathematical modelling and analogues. Perhaps neglected has been the human-produced record of rock art- markings made on rock surfaces by prehistoric humans which provide a c.50,000 year window onto environmental change and its consequences for humans and animals during the Quaternary Period. This essay synthesises a series of case studies which demonstrate that rock art- although dissimilar to conventional palaeoclimate proxies, suffering from neglect by researchers and limited by problems with dating and interpretation- is not irrelevant to Quaternary scientists, but can be, if sensitively interpreted, an interesting and informative source regarding climate, societal change and change in faunal distributions in the Quaternary period.

Reports the results of archaeological mitigation efforts conducted in advance of construction of the Los Vaqeruos Reservoir at previously recorded sites CA-CCO-447/H, -458/H, -459, -468, -469, -621/H, -636, -637, and a newly discovered site, CA-CCO-696, the later which contained two buried components. The upper buried component at CCO-696 contained a diverse assemblage of artifacts, numerous residential features, and about 150 human burials, with most dating to between about 1500 and 2500 cal BP. The lower deeply buried component at CCO-696 contained a human burial radiocarbon dated to about 7400 cal BP and an artifact assemblage of handstones, millingslabs, and a wide-stem projectile point radiocarbon dated between about 9400 and 9800 cal BP, which are among the oldest known cultural remains in the region.

Following the publication of a geological paper by Ixer and Bevins (2011) that provenanced certain rhyolite fragments in the Stonehenge "debitage" to a rocky crag at Craig Rhosyfelin in North Pembrokeshire, Parker Pearson and his archaeological colleagues announced that "the Pompeii of prehistoric stone quarries"  had been found at the site.  Over the course of five digging seasons they claim to have confirmed the initial hypothesis, although nothing has been published.  There has been no geomorphology involvement in the dig or in the interpretation of field findings, and this has caused concern.  Because the site is adjacent to a public footpath, and because parts of the excavation have been left open from season to season, it has been possible to conduct independent studies of the landforms and sediments. This paper summarises the new findings.  The dig site is located in a small meltwater channel on the NW flank of a rocky ridge.  There are abundant traces of glacial and fluvioglacial action, including heavy abrasion of exposed surfaces.  The valley wall coincides with a rock face which is interpreted as a natural feature controlled by multiple closely-spaced fracture planes which dip steeply and which are themselves controlled by foliations within the Ordovician rhyolite.  There is a long history of rockfalls from the crags above the rock face, and rockfall debris now partly obscures it.  Fragile rocky outcrops are still affected by biological and other processes which cause intermittent slope collapses.  The rock face is deemed not to be a quarrying face, since there is no trace of human intervention in its evolution.  The sequence of deposits at the site is described alongside a set of stratigraphic columns with a photographic record.  The deposits include a coarse diamicton which is interpreted as a Devensian till, and there are related fluvioglacial deposits near the tip of the rocky spur.  Rockfall deposits are intercalated with these materials, and stratified slope deposits are prominent.  These are assumed to be of Holocene age, and they grade into a mixed colluvial deposit towards the valley floor where the surface gradient is reduced. Within the deposit sequence there is a marked iron-stained layer which coincides in places with the top of the till layer; but it crosses stratigraphic boundaries and is interpreted as a pedological feature.  The full sequence is tied into the North Pembrokeshire glacial and post-glacial stratigraphy, and there are no anomalies. The final part of the paper examines a number of features claimed by the archaeologists to be "engineering features" or "installations".    Sixteen features are analysed, including a "proto-orthostat", an "export trackway", a "vertical stone fulcrum", "stone rails", and a "monolith extraction point." Without exception these features are found to be entirely natural; and indeed no trace has ever been found at Rhosyfelin of any tools such as hammer-stones, stone axes, or antler picks, or of any layers of quarry working debris or flakes.  On the other hand there are abundant traces of intermittent human occupation of this site over many thousands of years, which the authors interpret as signs of a hunting and gathering economy in which monolith quarrying played no part.  In conclusion it is suggested that the archaeologists at Rhosyfelin have described what they wanted to see, rather than what was there, and that they have been so enthusiastic about the quarrying "find" that they have unconsciously fashioned some of their own cited evidence.  It is proposed that in future work in putative "Neolithic quarrying" sites, archaeologists should ensure that there is an input from related disciplines including pedology and geomorphology.

Mockhorn Island in Northampton County, Virginia has an extensive late Quaternary geological and archaeological record. Investigations at 44NH440 and 44NH441 conducted throughout 2009 and 2010 on the island revealed evidence of drowned late prehistoric settlements. Excavations at 44NH440 exposed a drowned 1,500 year old midden area with evidence of prehistoric fishing. Excavations at 44NH441 documented a drowned 2,500 year old prehistoric house structure and an associated refuse area. In tandem with regional geologic evidence and sea level data, the island’s extensive archaeological record provides a more thorough understanding of the long-term human use of an Atlantic coastal island and the active role that marine transgression played on environmental and ecological change.

Leopard remains are rare in the European fossil record, probably a consequence of its solitary and elusive habits. Equi, dating back to Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS3), represents a rich and outstanding exception. Historical excavations (from 1911 to about 1917) at Equi allowed  more than 200 remains to be recovered of this large felid, a sample attesting the richest leopard-bearing site in the Pleistocene of Europe. The Equi site testifies the survival of a prosperous leopard population in northwestern Italy (the Apuan Alps area) during the pre Last Glacial Maximum Late Pleistocene. Almost all skeletal elements are represented in the collection (except ribs, and most of axial skeleton). At Equi, leopard is represented by both young and adult animals  and, up to now, it seems the first and unique Pleistocene evidence of cave usage for cubs raised in Europe.
This study focuses on the whole record of leopard from Equi, housed in the Museum of Natural History of Florence, and is aimed to analyze the taphonomical assemblage, to provide an anatomical description of the remains and the comparison to the European evidences. Moreover, we infer the paleoecology of leopards, and their relationships with other large carnivores from the Equi guild (Ursus spelaeus, Canis lupus, and Panthera leo spelaea). The site was probably an occasional large carnivores den, used over time by different large carnivore taxa, perhaps in different seasons or times (mutual avoiding).
Our morphological analysis allows us to recognize sexual dimorphic characters in the cranium, and a large morphological variability in body size.

A more recent database is v29; https://ees.kuleuven.be/en/geography/projects/14c-palaeolithic

Radiocarbon Palaeolithic Europe Database v20
Keywords: 14C, Radiocarbon, AMS, TL, OSL, U/Th, ESR, Palaeolithic, Database, Europe
At the Berlin INQUA Congress (1995) it was decided to create a database of 14C dates related to the human occupation of Europe.. The available dates have been collected from literature and from other more restricted databases. We try to incorporate newly published chronometric dates collected from all kind of available publications. The database contains now 14250 chronometric dates with their geographical coordinates from the European (Russian Siberia included) Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. All 14C dates are conventional dates BP.
The excel file is a very restricted query from the larger database (MS Access) which can be downloaded from:: Radiocarbon Palaeolithic Europe Database v20 at following URL address: http://ees.kuleuven.be/geography/projects/14c-palaeolithic/download/.
For citation, please use:
Vermeersch, P.M., 2016. Radiocarbon Palaeolithic Europe Database, Version 20. Available at: http://ees.kuleuven.be/geography/projects/14c-palaeolithic/index.html.

full citation: Ford, R.L., Gillman, S.J., Wilkins, D.E., Clement, W.P., and Nicoll, K. 2010. Geology and Geomorphology of Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Utah. In Anderson, P.B.; Chidsey, T.C. and Sprinkel, D.A. (Eds) Geology of Utah's Parks and Monuments, Utah Geological Association Publication 28, 3rd Edition, Bryce Canyon Natural History Association and Utah Geological Association. p. 379-406.

Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, located in southwestern Kane County, Utah, contains a variety of geologic features including one of the largest areas of freely migrating dunes in the Colorado Plateau. The semiarid climate, strong prevailing southerly winds, sparse vegetation, and abundant supply of sand-sized sediment make this area susceptible to eo-lian processes. Picturesque exposures of Jurassic rocks are present within the park. The stratigraphic sequence ranges from the Tri-assic-Jurassic Moenave Formation to the Middle Jurassic Carmel Formation. The most widespread bedrock unit exposed within the park is the Navajo Sandstone (Lower Jurassic). The Navajo Sandstone is also widely exposed across the Moccasin Terrace southwest of the park and is the most likely source for the sand that comprises the dune field. The " coral pink " color of the dune sand is the result of iron-oxide stains on the surface of the sand grains inherited from the source sandstones. Migrating dunes, whose morphology is primarily a function of wind characteristics, include transverse ridges, barchanoid ridges, and a solitary star dune. Dunes influenced or impeded by topographic obstacles or vegetation include climbing dunes, echo dunes, parabolic dunes, vegetated linear dunes, and nebkhas. We divide the dune field into major geomorphic units based on the dominant dune type. A largely stabilized (vegetated) sand sheet and partially stabilized, poorly organized dunes are present at the southern (upwind) end of the dune field. The active core of the dune field contains transverse ridges and barchanoid ridges. Barchanoid ridges at the northern (downwind) end of the active core grade into climbing dunes that ramp up the bedrock escarpment associated with the Sevier fault. The climbing dunes in turn grade into large parabolic dunes that dominate the downwind end of the dune field. Coral Pink Sand Dunes lies within the structural transition zone between the Great Basin section of the Basin and Range province to the west, and the core of the Colorado Plateau to the east. The north-south-trending Sevier fault cuts through the length of the park. The fault trace is marked by a west-facing bedrock escarpment that divides the park into two topographic units (a forested plateau to the east and a relatively low-lying valley floor to the west) and acts as a major control over the accumulation of sand within the dune field. Important events recorded in the geologic features of the park include the Triassic and Jurassic depositional history of the Glen Canyon Group, the Cretaceous to Cenozoic structural history of the Colorado Plateau, and the late Holocene history of the active dunes. Optically stimulated luminescence dates from the active core of the dune field indicate that Holocene eolian deposition began at least 4,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating of organic materials from an exhumed soil surface suggests a period of landscape stability approximately 500-200 years ago, coincident with the Little Ice Age. Den-drochronologic data from the ponderosa pines in the park, along with historic photographs, indicate the dune field has experienced alternating wet periods and drought since the end of the Little Ice Age, which have influenced vegetation coverage and dune activity in the area. 379

Stratigraphic exposures, fluvial archives and borehole data have been allowed to reconstruct the alluvial history of Late Pleistocene to Late Holocene and climate changes in the monsoonal wet – dry region of lower Damodar Basin (West Bengal, India). The facies architectures and climate proxies suggest that five to six climate changes occurred in between ~ 14 ka and 6 ka. Supporting evidence from the floodplain of Damodar River demonstrates that the successive phases of aggradation and incision were linked to the south-west monsoonal variability of Late Quaternary period. The onset of semi-arid climate was associated with caliches, pond and backswamp deposits of wanning low energy floods. The relatively warm-humid climate was associated with sandy bedforms, valley fills, slack water deposits and ferruginous nodules. This paper presents a synthesis of the available palaeoclimatic records from the lower Ganga Basin and the rivers of western and central India for the palaeoenvironmental significance of Late Quaternary deposits and discusses the influence of palaeoclimatic controls on the fluvial architectures and archives that developed below the floodplain of Damodar River. We have taken some representative studies from the region to reveal the spatial variability in fluvial successions in response to climate changes during this period.

This present version  has been updated to version 29 also available via Academia.edu or via : https://ees.kuleuven.be/en/geography/projects/14c-palaeolithic

The database, version 27 (first version was available in 2002), contains now 13342  site forms, (most of them with their geographical coordinates), comprising 17764 radiometric data:  Conv. 14C  and AMS 14C (13822 items), TL (1066 items), OSL (690 items), ESR, Th/U and AAR (2175 items)  from the European (Russian Siberia included) Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic. All 14C dates are conventional dates BP. This improved version 27 replaces the older version 26. 139 new sites are incorporated and 195 sites have a corrected or an updated content.

The application of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating in the Namib Desert is casting new light on late Quaternary environments. OSL has been applied to: (i) complex linear dunes, alongside ground penetrating radar stratigraphy in order to establish dune migration rates, (ii) fluvial lithofacies associations that distinguish between flood deposits and river end points, in order to constrain the timing of periods of higher discharge and conditions relatively drier than present and (iii) aeolian sand interbedded with carbonate deposits in order to provide chronologies for water-lain interdune sediments. We present and review the contribution of these data to enhancing reconstructions of the palaeoenvironments and palaeohydrology of the west coast of Namibia, particularly the increased confidence in interpretations provided by lithofacies analysis of the river deposits. This includes major silt deposits, which have had a contested palaeohydrological interpretation, such as the Kuiseb River Homeb Silts. We conclude that OSL should remain a key chronological technique to further elucidate the palaeoenvironmental history of southern Africa

Fragile geologic features known as " Hoodoos " occur in Southern California's Red Rock Canyon State Park, and Anooshehpoor et al. (2013) used them to estimate the upper limits of ground motion from recent seismic events on the nearby Garlock fault. Debate regarding the validity of using these features emerged when Stirling et al. (2015) proposed that erosion might cause the Hoodoos at Red Rock to have " substantially different geometries " during the time period since the last seismic event, and therefore might not be useful. In this paper, comparisons with photographs, some over 100 years old, were made that implied little change in the landscape. Comparisons to other locations worldwide, gave indications of how these fragile geologic features develop, and the timescales involved. At Red Rock, 3d modeling of the topography and local drainage systems was conducted, as well as tests of the rock hardness and measurements of the stratigraphy. Evidence of extreme precipitation events and mass movements at Red Rock imply a complex and unusual history of basin scale morphology, but most data imply little change in geometry of the Hoodoos since some time preceding the last Garlock earthquake. Figure 1: An example of some Red Rock Canyon, California Hoodoos.

We report the results of thermoluminescence (TL) dating applied to sand samples from the dune in Kepa Kujawska, Poland. The emphasis is on the estimation of the residual TL. The tests for bleaching of natural TL with the use of daylight and a bleach simulator were carried out. From the results it follows that the residual TL is a significant part of the natural TL. The equivalent doses were determined by the regeneration method with the residual TL assumed as a starting level. The annual doses were calculated by means of gamma spectrometry. The ages of the bottom and top layers of the dune are 10.6 ka +/- 2.4 ka and 2.1 ka +/- 0.6 ka, respectively.

The Australian region spans some 60
of latitude and 50
of longitude and displays considerable regional
climate variability both today and during the Late Quaternary. A synthesis of marine and terrestrial
climate records, combining findings from the Southern Ocean, temperate, tropical and arid zones,
identifies a complex response of climate proxies to a background of changing boundary conditions over
the last 35,000 years. Climate drivers include the seasonal timing of insolation, greenhouse gas content of
the atmosphere, sea level rise and ocean and atmospheric circulation changes. Our compilation finds few
climatic events that could be used to construct a climate event stratigraphy for the entire region, limiting
the usefulness of this approach. Instead we have taken a spatial approach, looking to discern the patterns
of change across the continent.
The data identify the clearest and most synchronous climatic response at the time of the Last Glacial
Maximum (LGM) (21  3 ka), with unambiguous cooling recorded in the ocean, and evidence of glaciation
in the highlands of tropical New Guinea, southeast Australia and Tasmania. Many terrestrial records
suggest drier conditions, but with the timing of inferred snowmelt, and changes to the rainfall/runoff
relationships, driving higher river discharge at the LGM. In contrast, the deglaciation is a time of considerable
south-east to north-west variation across the region. Warming was underway in all regions by
17 ka. Post-glacial sea level rise and its associated regional impacts have played an important role in
determining the magnitude and timing of climate response in the north-west of the continent in contrast
to the southern latitudes. No evidence for cooling during the Younger Dryas chronozone is evident in the
region, but the Antarctic cold reversal clearly occurs south of Australia. The Holocene period is a time of
considerable climate variability associated with an intense monsoon in the tropics early in the Holocene, giving way to a weakened monsoon and an increasingly El Niño-dominated ENSO to the present. The
influence of ENSO is evident throughout the southeast of Australia, but not the southwest. This climate
history provides a template from which to assess the regionality of climate events across Australia and
make comparisons beyond our region.

The Dose Rate calculator (DRc) is a software program written in Java that facilitates the calculation of dose rates and age determinations of materials, for use in palaeodosimetric dating methods. The program runs in a user-friendly interface and provides a number of user-controllable features. Dose rates are calculated using updated conversion and attenuation factors. This paper presents the basic principles that the software takes into account in its calculations.

Tuning is a widespread technique to combine, date and interpret multiple fossil proxy archives through aligning supposedly synchronous events between the archives. The approach will be reviewed by discussing a number of literature examples, ranging from peat and tephra layers to orbital tuning and δ18O series from marine and ice deposits. Potential problems will be highlighted such as the dangers of circular reasoning and unrecognised chronological uncertainties, and some solutions suggested. Fossil proxy research could become enhanced if tuning were approached in a more quantitative, reliable and objective way, and especially if individual proxy archives were non-tuned and kept on independent time-scales.

A literature survey and data from recent investigations are used to reconstruct ice limits in Ireland during the last (Midlandian) and penultimate (Munsterian) cold periods which are correlated with Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 2–5d (Weichselian) and 6–8 (Saalian) respectively. Evidence for Munsterian ice limits and flow directions is equivocal and based mainly on erratic carriage and the presence of striae and subdued glacial landforms found outside well-marked Midlandian end moraines. Ice extent and flow direction is known only from the late Midlandian (MIS 2; 24-10 kyr BP) although ice may well have been present in the early Midlandian (MIS 3–5d; 24–117 kyr BP). Six late Midlandian glacial stages are identified on the basis of morphosedimentary and dating evidence, and patterns of subglacial bedforms including drumlins and Rogen moraines. Previous late Midlandian glacial models are well-established but are generally based on incomplete and/or erroneous datasets, are not age-constrained, and do not consider time-transgressive sedimentation and landform-shaping events.

Recent work shows that repeated ice advance-retreat cycles (oscillations) occurred during the late Midlandian. Oscillations resulted in stratigraphically superimposed, overprinted and cross-cut landform and sediment patterns that record ice activity throughout the glacial cycle. Additionally, subglacial bedforms previously unrecorded in the British Isles, such as flow-transverse ridges (Rogen moraines), are also present. Late Midlandian ice oscillations in Ireland occurred in tempo with millennial-scale changes in North Atlantic climate suggesting connection to hemispheric shifts of the ice-ocean-atmosphere system.

This paper discusses the advance of the speleothem luminescence
research.  Potential,  resolution  and  limitations  of  high  resolution  luminescence  speleothem  proxy  records  of
Paleotemperature, Solar Insolation, Solar Luminosity, Glaciations, Sea Level advances, Past Precipitation, Plants
Populations, Paleosoils, Past Karst Denudation, Chemical Pollution, Cosmic Rays Flux variations, Cosmogenic
Isotopes production and Supernova Eruptions in the Past, Advances of Hydrothermal Waters, and Techtonic Uplift are
discussed. It is demonstrated that speleothems allow extremely high resolution (higher than in any other paleoclimatic
terrestrial archives) and long duration of records. Some speleothems can be used as natural climatic stations for
obtaining of quantitative proxy records of Quaternary climates with annual resolution.

Pulse compression technique is most widely used in radar and communication areas. Its implementation requires an optimized and dedicated hardware. The real time implementation places several constraints such as area occupied, power consumption , etc. The good design needs optimization of these constraints. This paper concentrates on the design of optimized model which can reduce these. In the proposed architecture a single chip is used for generating the pulse compression sequence like BPSk, QPSk, 6-PSK and other Polyphase codes. The VLSI architecture is implemented on the Field Programm-able Gate Array (FPGA) as it provides the flexibility of reconfigurability and reprogrammability .It was found that the proposed architecture has generated the pulse compression sequences efficiently while improving some of the parameters like area, power consumption and delay when compared to previous methods.

This study presents first results of a project which aims to develop an absolute chronology of the Weichselian ice marginal positions in north-eastern Germany using Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating. Owing to the special geomorphological and stratigraphical setting, many of the sampling sites were situated close to the former ice margin. At some sections the sediments showed an incomplete resetting

The first settlement of Europe by modern humans is thought to have occurred between 50,000 and 40,000 calendar years ago (cal B.P.). In Europe, modern human remains of this time period are scarce and often are not associated with archaeology or originate from old excavations with no contextual information. Hence, the behavior of the first modern humans in Europe is still unknown. Aurignacian assemblages—demonstrably made by modern humans—are com-monly used as proxies for the presence of fully behaviorally and anatomically modern humans. The site of Willendorf II (Austria) is well known for its Early Upper Paleolithic horizons, which are among the oldest in Europe. However, their age and attribution to the Aurignacian remain an issue of debate. Here, we show that archaeological horizon 3 (AH 3) consists of faunal remains and Early Aurignacian lithic artifacts. By using stratigraphic, paleoenvironmen-tal, and chronological data, AH 3 is ascribed to the onset of Green-land Interstadial 11, around 43,500 cal B.P., and thus is older than any other Aurignacian assemblage. Furthermore, the AH 3 assem-blage overlaps with the latest directly radiocarbon-dated Neander-thal remains, suggesting that Neanderthal and modern human presence overlapped in Europe for some millennia, possibly at rather close geographical range. Most importantly, for the first time to our knowledge, we have a high-resolution environmental con-text for an Early Aurignacian site in Central Europe, demonstrating an early appearance of behaviorally modern humans in a medium-cold steppe-type environment with some boreal trees along valleys around 43,500 cal B.P.