Pottery, Ceramics & Radiocarbon (C-14) Dating

Modern possibilities for carbon dating are now good tested for pottery and ceramic samples based on sufficient amount of carbon required for analyses.
Carbon residues, sufficient amount of datable carbon in sample was added to ceramic and pottery while production or while use - food preparation, etc.) allows application of such materials for ¹⁴C dating i.e. by application of direct pyrolysis procedures for benzene preparation for conventional analyses based on LSC.

N. Kovalyukh, V. Skripkin, M. Videiko. PECULIARITIES OF RADIOCARBON DATING OF ANCIENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL POTTERY. In the Abstracts of The First World Congress "Trypillian Civilization" was held in Kyiv, 7-11 October 2005. Cited at: http://www.trypillia.com/articles/eng/re2.shtml

G. I. Zaitseva, V. Skripkin, N.Kovaliukh, G.Possnert, P.Dolukhanov and A.Vybornov Radiocarbon Dating of Neolithic pottery. In Book of Abstract. Radiocarbon and Archaeology 5th International Symposium. URL: http://www.c14archaeology.ethz.ch/program

N. Kovalyukh, V. Skripkin, M. Videiko

PECULIARITIES OF RADIOCARBON DATING OF ANCIENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL POTTERY

The lack of radiocarbon dates for the most of known monuments from Neolithic epoch represents nowadays the principal impediment for a body of problems to be considered. These problems relate directly to genesis of either culture, division of studied culture into periods, as well as to their synchronisation in temporal correlation. This results from the fact that the cultural layers enclosing Neolithic monuments of partially wooded steppe and steppe landscape zones keep badly organic materials suitable for radiocarbon dating. Wood, coal and bone materials being within a good aeration soil are subjected to intensive microbiological destruction. As this takes place, the main archaeological finds are stone implements and pottery fragments.

Variant kinds of pottery are coming into widespread use over the area of Eastern Europe at the end of VII-VI BC millennia. Production of early pottery were allied to the technologies wherein the admixtures of organic origin (grass, chaffed straw, fluvial and lacustrine ooze and droppings) were used in addition to clayey component for plasticity and strength. The mentioned organic admixtures dominated in the primary pottery pasty mass and came to tens percent. Carbon content represented by coal inclusions after pottery annealing forms mostly 0,6-2 % in the mass total weight. Aluminocilicate matrix protects this carbon from oxidation and pollution by humic acids.

Just the availability of pottery such kind has brought into being prerequisites for successful radiocarbon dating of many archaeological complexes from Neolithic epoch. Under these conditions, the radiocarbon dating of pottery fragments is the unique way for authentic correlation between obtained radiocarbon dates and concrete cultural phenomenon.

Several series of pottery from early Neolithic cultures of Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland have been dated in the Kiev Radiocarbon Laboratory with new technologies applied in order to carry-out primary processing and synthesis of calculating form.

There have been gained some tens of dates for Tripolye, Dnieper-Donets and Bug-Dniester, cultures and otherwise. Radiocarbon dates on pottery are in good agreement with 14С dating on other organic material (fossil bone, coal) and archaeological prerequisites for each specific monument.

Radiocarbon Dating of Neolithic pottery.

G. Zaitseva, V. Skripkin, N. Kovaliukh, G. Possnert, P. Dolukhanov & A. Vybornove

The correct association of radiocarbon-dated organic materials with archaeological events or features (the ?placement history') constitutes a major problem in radiocarbon dating of archaeological sites. The possible solution lays in the direct measurement of organic matter included into archaeological artefacts. The pottery being the commonest element in archaeological assemblages seems to be promising in this respect. Routinely archaeologists use the pottery styles as the most important criterion for identifying such entities as ?archaeological cultures'. Pottery together with animal bones are the only datable organic-rich substances detectable in the Yelshanian and other early Neolithic cultural entities in Russia's South. The early dates obtained for the sites of these cultures make them crucial for modelling the early Neolithic dispersal (Davison et al. 2007). The main hazard associated with the radiocarbon dating of archaeological pottery resides in the identification of the origin of organic matter. Food residues on the pottery sherds that are used for dating are usually found in small quantities which preclude the use of conventional dating, leaving the AMS technique as the only option (Timofeev, Zaitseva & Possnert, 1995). Recently the Kiev 14C Laboratory has sufficiently improved the dating technique, thus enabling to carry out the direct measurement of organic matter in the pottery paste with the use of conventional methods. Crushed shells, grass and organic substances in lake deposits included into the pottery paste are the sources of measurable organic matter. The discussed dates have been obtained by the Kiev and St. Petersburg laboratories with the use of conventional radiocarbon methods and cross-checked at the Uppsala Laboratory with the use of AMS technique.

The dated pottery sheds were divided into an inner ('the 'terra-cotta' red coloured portion) and an outer parts (the dark one), the both parts were treated by HCl and HF, and the remaining black carbon fraction mainly originated from the outer part has been measured. It has been suggested that the carbon included into then pottery paste came mostly from the hearths, hence its age may be deemed as a reliable estimate of the site's age. The dates of the same samples obtained in all three laboratories show a satisfactory cohesion. The obtained series of radiocarbon dates have been used for the assessment the age of early stages of the pottery manufacture in the South of Russia.