A Review of Current Approaches in the Pretreatment of Bone for Radiocarbon Dating by AMS

Abstract

Although the reliability of 14C dates of bone has increased greatly since AMS methods permitted better pretreatment on smaller samples, most old, badly contaminated or severely weathered bone still give serious problems. Several groups have recently proposed improvements to sample purification methods, often supported by a number of 14C measurements. We present here an overview of these improvements. The issue is complicated by the following: 1. Different problems are presented depending on age, preservation and degree of contamination of bone. 2. Methods may or may not be developed with routine application in mind. 3. Determining the conditions for which any method can be regarded as reliable is not at all straightforward.