ORIGINAL PAPER The old wood effect revisited: a comparison of radiocarbon dates of wood charcoal and short-lived taxa from Korea Jangsuk Kim 1 & David K. Wright 1 & Jaehoon Hwang 2 & Junkyu Kim 1 & Yongje Oh 1 Received: 16 May 2018 /Accepted: 10 December 2018 /Published online: 4 January 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract Due to the Bold wood effect,^ wood is not an ideal material for radiocarbon dating if there are other options available. However, in regions where short-lived taxa are not well preserved, archeologists face a dilemma whether to use wood dates to construct archeological interpretations, often leading to controversies over validity of their chronologies. To systematically access this problem, this paper evaluates the intensity of the old wood effect in Korea. First we compared radiocarbon dates assayed from five wood and 32 soybean (Glycine max) samples obtained from a prehistoric pithouse in central-western Korea. Statistical analysis shows that there is no significant disparity in the ages between the materials in this case. To further assess the issue, we compared 24 cases from the Korean Radiocarbon Database in which both wood and short-lived taxa were found and dated from the same house feature. The results demonstrate that, in general, the old wood effect is not substantial in Korea. However, further analysis of these results suggests that the potential for an old wood effect increases slightly over time in Korea, despite the fact that there was no significant climatic change. We interpret the adoption of iron for woodcutting around the first century BCE as a catalyst for a noted increase in the thickness of wood timbers of houses, which consequently produced conditions more opportune for the occurrence of an old wood effect. It suggests that the variability of an old wood effect can be the result of technological factors even within the same general physical environment. Keywords Radiocarbon dating . Old wood effect . Korea . Comparison . Temporal variability Over the past several decades, there has been considerable effort exerted to increase the accuracy and precision of radio- carbon dating and understand inherent uncertainties associated with the method (e.g., Aitchison et al. 1989; Bowman 1990; Bayliss 2009; Buck et al. 1991; Kim et al. 2016; Nelson et al. 1977; Reimer et al. 2004, 2013; Stuiver et al. 1986, 1998; Suess 1970; Wright 2017). With improved analytical technol- ogies and statistical techniques, the goals of having highly precise and accurate estimations of archeological time established in the infancy of radiocarbon dating (Libby 1963; Neustupný 1970; Stuiver and Suess 1966) are now being realized. Yet, archeologists, who are some of the prime con- sumers of radiocarbon dating, still wrestle with discrepancies between radiocarbon dates and the exact dates of target events that are needed to provide a realistic estimate of site formation and/or abandonment processes (Higham 2011; Higham et al. 2014; Nolan 2012; Pike et al. 2012). Among others, the Bold wood effect^ which Schiffer (1986) addressed more than 30 years ago still remains one of the most difficult problems in using radiocarbon dates for developing accurate chronolo- gies. Since Schiffer’ s warning, archeologists have realized that short-lived taxa such as annual grasses are preferable materials for radiocarbon dating to long-lived plants preserved as wood charcoal and there must be a critical assessment of dates assayed from wood (Huckleberry and Rittenour 2014; Nolan 2012; Shott 1992; Pettitt et al. 2003; Zilhão 2001). However, archeologists working in areas where preserva- tion of organic materials is poor often struggle with shortages of datable, short-lived species or bones due to their lower chances of preservation (Cook and Comstock 2014 ; Haesaerts et al. 2010; Regev et al. 2011; Grave and Barbetti 2001; Hwang et al. 2016). Most radiocarbon dates from these * Jangsuk Kim jangsuk@snu.ac.kr 1 Department of Archaeology and Art History, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 08826, Republic of Korea 2 Department of Archaeology, Chungnam National University, 99 Daehak-ro, Yoosung-gu, Daejeon 34134, Republic of Korea Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2019) 11:3435–3448 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-018-0766-8