The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

• 14 • Nicholas Barton
Table 2.1 British and European sub-divisions of the Lateglacial.
highly detailed record of climatic change, derived from the Greenland ice sheet, has been obtained
from the GISP-2 ice-core. The climatic signal, in the form of a continuous temperature curve, is
calculated from the relative percentages of different oxygen isotopes and dust levels present in
the core. This is underpinned by a high precision time-scale based on the counting of annually
accumulating layers of ice. So far, direct comparisons between the land and ice-core records have
been only moderately successful, but the results of work at Gransmoor in eastern Britain suggest
that correlations will increasingly prove possible (Lowe et al. 1995) (Figure 2.1).
Part of the difficulty in producing a fine-grained chronology for the Lateglacial is due to the
current limitations of the radiocarbon method. Nevertheless, recent progress in using independent
dating measurements on tree ring data and uranium-thorium results has allowed a recalibration
of radiocarbon dates for the Lateglacial period. By combining these results with the information
from annually accumulating laminae within the ice-core, it is possible to show that the Dimlington
glaciation ended abruptly 14,500 years ago. This same event is recorded by conventional
radiocarbon dates at about 13,000 BP.
Despite the fact that calibration of the radiocarbon record over 10,000 years ago is now
theoretically possible (though still largely untested), for the sake of comparability, a chronology
based on uncalibrated radiocarbon years is employed here. Thus while the beginning of our
present interglacial occurred about 11,500 ice-core years ago, the conventional age equivalent of
10,000 BP will be used.
LATE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC
Environmental background
The earliest evidence for reoccupation of Britain after the Last Glacial Maximum is currently
provided by a modified bone of red deer (Cervus elaphus) from Gough’s Cave (Somerset), dating