Rehabilitation of the Laboratoire de Carbone 14-Dakar (Senegal) with a Super Low-Level Liquid Scintillation Counting System
Issue Date
2004-01-01Keywords
absolute ageAfrica
aromatic hydrocarbons
benzene
C 14
calibration
carbon
case studies
Cenozoic
chronology
dates
Holocene
hydrocarbons
Iron Age
isotopes
Khant Senegal
liquid scintillation methods
Neolithic
northern Senegal
organic compounds
precision
Quaternary
radioactive isotopes
Senegal
shells
Stone Age
West Africa
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Ndeye, M., Ka, O., Bocoum, H., & Diallo, A. O. (2004). Rehabilitation of the Laboratoire de Carbone 14-Dakar (Senegal) with a super low-level liquid scintillation counting system. Radiocarbon, 46(1), 117-122.Journal
RadiocarbonDescription
From the 18th International Radiocarbon Conference held in Wellington, New Zealand, September 1-5, 2003.Additional Links
http://radiocarbon.webhost.uits.arizona.edu/Abstract
Following the passing of Prof Cheikh Anta Diop in 1986, the radiocarbon laboratory (LC14) he created 20 yr earlier at the Institut Francophone d'Afrique Noire (IFAN), Dakar, Senegal, fell into a long hibernation. It took nearly 3 yr to renovate the laboratory and reinstall new equipment in order to return LC14 to full functionality and resume its activity. A new dating system has been implemented around a super low-level liquid scintillation spectrometer from Packard, the Tri-Carb 3170TR/LS, located in an underground room. In this paper, we assess the performance of the dating setup (background level and figure of merit) using known samples from Paris 6 and international standards from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). After the calibration, the setup was used to study bole seashells from the Khant area in the northern part of Senegal (West Africa). The aim is to present evidence of the correlation between the transgression of the Nouakchottan (5500 BP) and a few industries in the Khant area. The corresponding ages are difficult to assess and the dates available for this cultural site are randomly distributed, ranging from 4500 to 1500 BP, i.e., a chronological period spanning from the Neolithic to the Iron Age.Type
Proceedingstext
Language
enISSN
0033-8222ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1017/S0033822200039424