A marine reservoir effect ΔR value for Kitandach, in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia, Canada

Edinborough, K., Martindale, A., Cook, G. T. , Supernant, K. and Ames, K. M. (2016) A marine reservoir effect ΔR value for Kitandach, in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia, Canada. Radiocarbon, 58(4), pp. 885-891. (doi: 10.1017/RDC.2016.46)

Abstract

Prince Rupert Harbour (PRH), on the north Pacific Coast of British Columbia, contains at least 157 shell middens, of which 66 are known villages, in an area of approximately 180 km. These sites span the last 9500 yr and in some cases are immense, exceeding 20,000 m surface area and several meters in depth. Recent archaeological research in PRH has become increasingly reliant on radiocarbon dates from marine shell for developing chronologies. However, this is problematic as the local marine reservoir effect (MRE) remains poorly understood in the region. To account for the MRE and to better date the Harbour’s sites, we propose a ΔR of 273 ± 38 for the PRH area, based on our work at the site of Kitandach (GbTo-34), a massive shell midden-village centrally located within the Harbour. We followed the multiple paired sample approach for samples from speci fic contexts and ensured contemporaneity within the groups of marine and terrestrial materials by statistically assessing for outliers using the χ2 test. Taking together, the results for this and previous studies, it appears the MRE was fairly constant over the past 5000 yr.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: 14C dates were obtained through (US) National Science Foundation Grant Number 216847 awarded to Kenneth Ames as Principal Investigator. Samples for dating were collected through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Grant Number 410-2011-0814 awarded to Andrew Martindale as Principal Investigator.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Cook, Professor Gordon
• Authors: Edinborough, K., Martindale, A., Cook, G. T., Supernant, K., and Ames, K. M.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre
• Journal Name: Radiocarbon
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• ISSN: 0033-8222
• ISSN (Online): 1945-5755
• Published Online: 28 July 2016
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2016 the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona
• First Published: First published in Radiocarbon 58(4):885-891
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under creative commons license