ABSTRACT
It is one of the fundamental tenets of radiocarbon dating that within each hemisphere the preindustrial atmosphere was sufficiently well mixed to permit the use of a universal 14C calibration dataset. Radiocarbon measurements available through to the early 1990s (e.g. Vogel et al. 1993; Stuiver and Becker 1993), as well as General Circulation Models (GCM) (Braziunas, Fung, and Stuiver 1995), supported this prerequisite. But then several studies reported significant locationdependent 14C differences (see McCormac, Baillie, and Pilcher 1995, and references therein). Such issues could affect high-resolution radiocarbon dating. The EMRCP was therefore established to investigate this and related topics with specific reference to the accurate and precise employment of radiocarbon dating in the prehistoric Aegean and east Mediterranean region. In a first stage of work we compared 14C time series obtained from two key areas relevant for this issue-Central Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean-based on decadal wood samples from German Oak (from southern Germany) and Turkish pine (from Çatack forest in western Anatolia) and juniper (from the archaeological site of Gordion and area dendrochronology). These first stage results have been reported previously (Kromer et al. 2001; Manning et al. 2001, 2003). In this chapter we illustrate the current extension of our work in the AD 1300-1800 and 900-600 BCE intervals, and comment on the state of play at present (as of AD 2004).
