AMS Dating of the Late Copper Age Varna Cemetery, Bulgaria

Higham, Thomas; Slavchev, Vladimir; Gaydarska, Bisserka; Chapman, John

Abstract

The Varna I cemetery, on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, is one of the most remarkable sites in European prehistory, with the world’s earliest large-scale assemblage of gold artifacts. Modeling of the first series of 14 accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates yielded a duration of occupation at the site of ca. 150 years, ~4600–4450 cal BC. However, there were insufficient paired human–animal dates for a full consideration of the question of the marine reservoir effect. Here, a fuller set of 71 dates from 53 graves is presented. We identify a small reservoir effect in a number of individuals based on 14C, as well as carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. We test the effect of this by building a series of different Bayesian models. Our favored model, including a correction for some of the human determinations, shows activity at the cemetery starting at 4596–4516 cal BC and ending 4427–4341 cal BC (at 95.4% probability). The overall span of activity covers ~120–260 years (93.6% prob.). The modeling shows that Varna I falls toward the beginning of the Bulgarian Late Copper Age.

Citation

Higham, T., Slavchev, V., Gaydarska, B., & Chapman, J. (2018). AMS Dating of the Late Copper Age Varna Cemetery, Bulgaria. Radiocarbon, 60(02), 493-516. https://doi.org/10.1017/rdc.2018.9

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Mar 1, 2018
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: May 15, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 1, 2018
• Journal: Radiocarbon
• Print ISSN: 0033-8222
• Electronic ISSN: 1945-5755
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 02
• Pages: 493-516
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/rdc.2018.9