Excavations at the Sarn-y-bryn-caled cursus complex, Welshpool, Powys, and the timber circles of Great Britain and Ireland

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Abstract

Excavations between November 1990 and February 1992 have produced important information on the date and development of the Sarn-y-bryn-caled cursus complex between 3000–2000 BC. In particular a timber circle of 2000 BC, two penannular ring-ditches and a section across the cursus monument were excavated. A radiocarbon sequence has been obtained. The results of the excavations are described in Part I. Part II comprises a discussion of the forms, dates, functions, and reconstruction of timber circles. A corpus of and chronology for timber circles is presented.

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High-Precision Bidecadal Calibration of the Radiocarbon Time Scale, AD 1950–500 BC and 2500–6000 BC

Gordon Pearson, Minze Stuiver (1993)

The radiocarbon ages of dendrochronologically dated wood spanning the AD 1950–6000 BC interval are now available for Seattle (10-yr samples, Stuiver & Becker 1993) and Belfast (20-yr samples, Pearson, Becker & Qua 1993; Pearson & Qua 1993). The results of both laboratories were previously combined to generate a bidecadal calibration curve spanning nearly 4500 years (Stuiver & Pearson 1986; Pearson & Stuiver 1986). We now find that minor corrections must be applied to the published data sets, and therefore, give new bidecadal radiocarbon age information for 2500–6000 BC, as well as corrected radiocarbon age averages for AD 1950–500 BC. Corrected average14C ages for the 500–2500 BC interval are given separately (Pearson & Stuiver 1993). The Seattle corrections (in the 10–3014C-yr range) are discussed in Stuiver and Becker (1993), whereas Pearson and Qua (1993) provide information on Belfast corrections (averaging 16 yr). All dates reported here are conventional radiocarbon dates, as defined in Stuiver and Polach (1977). Belfast14C ages back to 5210 BC were obtained on wood from the Irish oak chronology (Pearsonet al.1986). Wood from the German oak chronology (Becker 1993) was used by Belfast for the 5000–6000 BC interval. For the overlapping interval (5000–5210 BC), Belfast reports weighted Irish wood/German wood14C age averages. The Seattle14C ages for the AD interval were either on Douglas fir wood from the US Pacific Northwest, or Sequoia wood from California (Stuiver 1982). The BC materials measured in Seattle were mostly part of the German oak chronology. Thirteen samples (5680–5810 BC) from the US bristlecone pine chronology (Ferguson & Graybill 1983) were measured in Seattle as well. Here, the final Seattle decadal14C ages resulted from averaging German oak and bristlecone pine ages.

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High-Precision Calibration of the Radiocarbon Time Scale, 500–2500 bc

Minze Stuiver, Gordon Pearson (1986)

This paper is a twin paper to that of Stuiver and Pearson (1986) which covers the time period ad 1950–500 bc. The combined radiocarbon ages of dendrochronologically dated wood presented in this paper covers the time period 500–2500 bc.

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High-Precision Bidecadal Calibration of the Radiocarbon Time Scale, 500–2500 BC

Minze Stuiver, Gordon Pearson (1993)

The sole purpose of this paper is to present a previously published14C data set to which minor corrections have been applied. All basic information previously given is still applicable (Pearson & Stuiver 1986). The corrections are needed because14C count-rate influences (radon decay in Seattle, a re-evaluation of the corrections applied for efficiency variation with time previously unrecognized in Belfast) had to be accounted for in more detail. Information on the radon correction is given in Stuiver and Becker (1993). The Belfast corrections were necessary because the original correction for efficiency variations with time was calculated using two suspect standards (these were shown to be suspect by recent observations) that overweighted the correction. A re-evaluation (Pearson & Qua 1993) now shows it to be almost insignificant, and the corrected dates (using the new correction) became older by about 16 years.