Studying Past Human-Environment Interactions with High Precision AMS 14C at Penn State

Summary

The newly established PSU AMS Radiocarbon (14C) Facility provides high-precision measurements of 14C content in a wide range of carbon-bearing materials. Our primary mission is the study of human-environment interactions in the past and present with the goal of working with archaeologists in the context of inter-disciplinary environmental research. The facility operates a NEC 1.5 SDH 500kV Tandem Pelletron accelerator optimized for relatively small samples, requiring only 700µg of graphitized carbon, with a potential lower limit of 15µg C, with routine precision of 20-25 14C years for samples less than 10,000 years old. We provide expertise in sample collection, research design, Bayesian chronology building, and the chemical preparation of archaeological samples with special expertise in the purification of bone collagen. We highlight recent projects in Alaska and the Maya Region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17066