All,
Surfing the Web in order to find some recent information on Late Pleistocene/Palaeo American material, I found the following articles (see below). They are from Mammoth Trumpet
(CLICK HERE), a journal that I had not accessed for a while, and should be of interest not only to New World aficionados, but also to people who have a soft spot for radiocarbon dating in general.
Carbon, and Radiocarbon Dating: A Primer.
Although it accounts for only a tiny fraction of our planet's crust--less than 0.02 percent--carbon exerts an influence on Earth processes all out of proportion to its modest bulk.
Carbon, a versatile element
In its pure form carbon can appear as graphite, the stuff of pencil lead; because it has a high melting point and is an excellent conductor of electricity, graphite is also the stuff of electrodes for electric motors, arc lamps, and furnaces. If its atoms are fused under intense heat and pressure deep in the Earth--or in the laboratory--pure carbon is diamond, the hardest substance known and an electrical insulator. Carbon also has the remarkable ability to alter the properties of other materials. Combined with ordinary metals like aluminum and boron, it makes extremely tough tools for cutting and grinding. Steel heat-treated with carbon ("case hardened") is highly resistant to wear and impervious to almost any object--except tools made from carbon.
The many roles of carbon aren't confined to the inorganic realm. Carbon when heated combines readily with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, CO2, the fizz of soda pop. Ingested by plants, atmospheric CO2 is converted by photosynthesis to carbohydrates, the food of life. The basis of all sugars, starches, and proteins, organic carbon is bound up in every living cell, plant and animal.
CLICK HERE for the full article.
Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times by Richard B. Firestone & William Topping.
The Paleoindian occupation of North America, theoretically the point of entry of the first people to the Americas, is traditionally assumed to have occurred within a short time span beginning at about 12,000 yr B.P. This is inconsistent with much older South American dates of around 32,000 yr B.P.1 and the similarity of the Paleoindian toolkit to Mousterian traditions that disappeared about 30,000 years ago.2. A pattern of unusually young radiocarbon dates in the Northeast has been noted by Bonnichsen and Will.3,4
Our research indicates that the entire Great Lakes region (and beyond) was subjected to particle bombardment and a catastrophic nuclear irradiation that produced secondary thermal neutrons from cosmic ray interactions. The neutrons produced unusually large quantities of 239Pu and substantially altered the natural uranium abundance ratios (235U/238U) in artifacts and in other exposed materials including cherts, sediments, and the entire landscape. These neutrons necessarily transmuted residual nitrogen (14N) in the dated charcoals to radiocarbon, thus explaining anomalous dates.
CLICK HERE for the full article.
And, finally,
Update: Article Questioning Radiocarbon-dating Accuracy Draws Fire from Scientists
In "Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophe in Paleoindian Times" (MT 16-2), authors Richard Firestone and William Topping theorized that C-14 levels in carboniferous materials, by which the age of organisms and artifacts is measured, are grossly misleading, the result of neutron bombardment from a supernova in late-Pleistocene times that "reset the radioactive clock."
Mammoth Trumpet has received a rebuttal to Firestone and Topping's article from two respected authorities on radiocarbon dating: John R. Southon, Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and R. E. Taylor, Radiocarbon Laboratory, Department of Anthropology, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California-Riverside. Their rebuttal to the article is printed below in its entirety.
We offered Firestone and Topping the opportunity to respond. After the year that has elapsed since the article was published, however, the authors no longer agree about the events theorized in their article. Firestone's reply is printed below. Topping declined to respond, pending new experimental data.
Brief Comments on "Terrestrial Evidence of a Nuclear Catastrophein Paleoindian Times," by Richard B. Firestone and William Topping
In a recent issue of Mammoth Trumpet, Richard B. Firestone and William Topping propose that about 12,500 CALYBP (solar time, not 14C time), the earth was subjected to a sudden cosmic ray bombardment event due to a local supernova.1 They postulate that one effect of this event--most pronounced in the north-central and north-eastern portions of North America, e.g., the Great Lakes region--was the production of secondary thermal neutrons which converted nitrogen to 14C in charcoal samples contained in surface archaeological sites. According to Firestone and Topping, this in situ production of 14C had the effect of, in their words, "resetting" the 14C age of charcoals in these sites of up to the equivalent of about 40,000 years depending on latitude and the amount of overburden at a site.
CLICK HERE for the full article.
I must say that I side with Southon and Taylor.
Jacques Cinq-Mars
