Annual report 1997 for the project

"Absolute Chronology for Early Civilisations in Austria and Central Europe using 14C Dating with Accelerator Mass Spectrometry"

P12253PHY PI Herwig Friesinger

Development for the 14C Measurements at VERA

The new Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA) is the facility of choice for all 14C measurements within the project. First 14C dating test experiments with this facility started in the middle of 1996. In 1997, a variety of dating experiments and also systematic measurements were performed including fully automated 14C measurements. This led to the current precision of 0.5%, quite satisfactory for the project. Within the project the following specific activities concerning VERA have been pursued:

  • Visit of Dr. Christopher Bronk Ramsey from Oxford in Vienna to discuss the use of the 14C calibration program OxCal. Work on further improvements of OxCal have been started including "wiggle matching".
  • Search for a chemist to work in the sample preparation laboratory of VERA. This person will build up an eight-fold graphitization system, and is responsible to prepare all archaeological samples (~1000) for the AMS measurements. After the first candidate for the job cancelled her committment in the middle of 1997, we had to start a new search. We will now employ Dipl.Ing. Susanne Draxler on 1st April 1998. She recently finished her degree in Technical Chemistry at the TU Vienna.
  • Purchase of a Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometer. A major part of the project is the acquisition of a modern mass spectrometer for high-precision stable isotope measurements. An open bidding procedure within EU countries required for this item was perfomed at the end of 1997. Currently, the evaluation of the bids from the three major companies in the field (Europa Scientific, Finnigan Mat, VG-Micromass) are in progress. The final decision about the purchase will be made by the end of March 1998. After ordering, a delivery period of three months is expected.

    • 14C Data Base

    The already existing data base has been enlarged by Angela Caneiro, MA, to about 30.000 radiocarbon dates, beginning in July 1997. Thereby the data base is worldwide the biggest of its kind, the data base of the University of Lyon consists now of about "only" 9000 archaeological 14C data. In the near future it is intended to publish the results of the group-calibration of more than 500 cultural groups in the Internet for the interested public. At the same time it should be installed a possibility for scientists to cooperate, so that they can complete missing datas in the "MS-Access-data base" and seize the opportunity to work with certain parts of the data bank.

    Collection of the Department of Anthropology of the Museum of Natural History in Vienna

    In July 1997 Friederike Gerold, MA, started to feed the computer with data of the anthropological collection. All together the collection now contains 30000 skeletons, 24000 of them are from archaeological sources. First of all a "Thesaurus" for the description of the skeletons has been optimized, with which we have registered about 4500 individuals with informations about acquisition, site, dating, sex, age, and condition of conservation. Besides this, we have been working on the remains of skeletons from the Langobardian Cemetery of Brunn am Gebirge. The skeletons are in rather bad condition, therefore they have to be prepared for an exact determination of their age and sex. This is necessary to date the most important of the 22 graves by 14-C dating.

    Collection of the Department of Palaeozoology of the Museum of Natural History in Vienna

    Since the middle of November 1997 Celine Wawruschka collected the following data of all the inventory with the help of a specialized "Thesaurus": number of inventory, site, date of delivery and depository. This work is already finished for the whole inventory. At present a schedule of bone-descriptions is listed in "Microsoft Access", more than half of the data are already entered. In addition a bibliography of published find complexes from the inventory has to be compiled, this work is expected to be finished until the end of April 1998.

    Conclusion

    The project is well on its way to take of with 14C data taking and corresponding evaluations in the second half of 1998. Once the rather elaborate build-up period of the new hardware at VERA is finished, a fast turn around of samples for 14C measurements is expected.