ABSTRACT

Atmospheric 14CG2 mixes with all living biomass through photosynthesis, as well as with meteoric waters and oceans (and carbonates formed in such waters) through C02 exchange reactions. By consequence, any carbon compound derived from atmospheric C 02 since the late Pleistocene is potentially eligible for radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon provides the chronology on which archeologists have reconstructed our history in the Holocene. It has also provided the basis of climatic reconstructions in the late Pleistocene and Holocene.