METHODOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF NEW RADIOCARBON DATES FROM THE EARLY HOLOCENE SITE OF K RTIK TEPE, SOUTHEAST ANATOLIA Marion Benz 1 Ayta Coskun 2 Irka Hajdas 3 Katleen Deckers 4 Simone Riehl 4 ' 5 Kurt W Alt 6 Bernhard Weninger 7 Vecihi zkaya 2 ABSTRACT. One of the greatest challenges of contemporary archaeology is to synthesize the large amount of radiocarbon and archaeological data into a useful dialogue. For the late Epipaleolithic and the Early Neolithic of the Near East, many 14 C ages have been published without precise stratigraphie documentation. Consequently, for archaeological age models we often must use some more elementary approaches, such as probabilistic summation of calibrated ages. The stratigraphy of K rtik Tepe allows us for the first time to study an extended series of 14 C ages of the earliest Holocene. In particular, we are able to analyze the data according to stratigraphie position within a well-documented profile. However, because of a plateau in the 14 C age calibration curve at the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Early Holocene, dates of this period can be inter- preted only if an extended sequence of dates is available. Due to problems remaining in the calibration procedure, the best way to achieve an interpretation is to compare the results of different 14 C calibration software. In the present paper, we use the results of the calibration programs OxCal and CalPal. This approach has important implications for future age modeling, in particular for the question of how to date the transition from the Epipaleolithic to the PPNA precisely and accurately. INTRODUCTION In the early days of radiocarbon dating, even single 14 C ages provided invaluable information for the absolute chronology of archaeological sites. It has become a challenge to interpret correctly the increasingly large archaeological 14 C database in order to reconstruct processes in human prehistory. Some significant archaeological and statistical filtering is necessary (e.g. Bayliss 2009). Whereas the technology of 14 C dating has itself made enormous progress (Hajdas 2009), many of the earlier measured 14 C dates for the Epipaleolithic-Neolithic transition in the Near East were published with- out much stratigraphie detail. Consequently, even large-scale data compilations (e.g. http:// www.exoriente.org/associatedjprojects/ppnd.php) can provide only a broad impression as to the chronological relationships between the different archaeological sites (Benz 2000; Aurenche et al. 2001 ; Weninger et al. 2009). During the studied period, even the relative time sequence of sites, pro- cesses, and events is in many cases difficult to evaluate. Judgments about the reliability of 14 C data are therefore often based on the plausibility (or implausibility) of the observed 14 C age of different dated materials. In some cases, old wood samples (e.g. Finlayson and Mithen 2007:460-9) or some (possibly contaminated) bones could be identified (Otte et al. 1998:538; Denaire 2009). In other cases, problems related to sample reworking or measurement have been detected (e.g. vin and Stordeur 2008). There are even circumstances in which 14 C ages on samples from contexts that were previously considered reliable may prove to be problematic, as for many of the 14 C-dated seeds from Abu Hureyra, which were apparently from relocated deposits (http://www.exoriente.org/ associated_projects/ppnd_site.php?s=2). Thus, a cautious and critical analysis of the sample prove- nience in each individual case is a paramount condition for chronological discussions (Perrot 2000: 11; Bayliss 2009:126). In particular, the important transition from Epipaleolithic to early Neolithic 1 Department of Near Eastern Archaeology, Albert-Ludwigs-University, 79085 Freiburg, Germany. Corresponding author. Email: marion.benz@orient.uni-freiburg.de. 2 Dicle niversitesi, Edebiyat Fak ltesi, Arkeoloji B l m , 21280 Diyarbakir, Turkey. 3 Ion Beam Physics, Z rich, 8093 Z rich, Switzerland. 4 Institute for Archaeological Science, Eberhard-Karls-University, 72070 T bingen, Germany. 5 Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoecology, T bingen, Germany 6 Institute of Anthropology, Johannes-Gutenberg-University, 55099 Mainz, Germany. institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Radiocarbon Laboratory, University of Cologne, 50923 Cologne, Germany. © 2012 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona Proceedings of the 6th International Radiocarbon and Archaeology Symposium, edited by Boaretto and R Rebollo Franco RADIOCARBON, Vol 54, Nr 3-4, 2012, 291-304 291 https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033822200047081 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 3.92.57.205, on 26 May 2020 at 03:10:55, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at