This page provides resources for use with OxCal arising from research on Kauri wood carried out as part of a large international collaboration and published in Radiocarbon in 2016.
Radiocarbon datasets based on measurements on Kauri are published in:
Hogg, A., Southon, J., Turney, C., Palmer, J., Bronk Ramsey, C., Fenwick, P., Boswijk, G., Büntgen, U., Friedrich, M., Helle, G., Hughen, K., Jones, R., Kromer, B., Noronha, A., Reinig, F., Reynard, L., Staff, R. and Wacker, L. (2016) ‘Decadally Resolved Lateglacial Radiocarbon Evidence from New Zealand Kauri’ Radiocarbon, doi: 10.1017/RDC.2016.86
The Last Glacial–Interglacial Transition (LGIT; 15,000–11,000 cal BP) was characterized by complex spatiotemporal patterns of climate change, with numerous studies requiring accurate chronological control to decipher leads from lags in global paleoclimatic, paleoenvironmental, and archaeological records. However, close scrutiny of the few available tree-ring chronologies and radiocarbon-dated sequences composing the IntCal13 14C calibration curve indicates significant weakness in 14C calibration across key periods of the LGIT. Here, we present a decadally resolved atmospheric 14C record derived from New Zealand kauri spanning the Lateglacial from ~13,100–11,365 cal BP. Two floating kauri 14C time series, curve-matched to IntCal13, serve as a 14C backbone through the Younger Dryas. The floating Northern Hemisphere (NH) 14C data sets derived from the YD-B and Central European Lateglacial Master tree-ring series are matched against the new kauri data, forming a robust NH 14C time series to ~14,200cal BP. Our results show that IntCal13 is questionable from ~12,200–11,900cal BP and the ~10,400 BP 14C plateau is approximately 5 decades too short. The new kauri record and repositioned NH pine 14C series offer a refinement of the international 14C calibration curves IntCal13 and SHCal13, providing increased confidence in the correlation of global paleorecords.
Ahead of integration into an updated IntCal calibratation curve, the datasets are provided here for comparison purposes in a format suitable for use in OxCal.
To use the comparison curves, copy the relevant curve (eg SHKauri16.14c or NHPine16.14c) to your OxCal working directory and then use one of the commands:
Curve("SHKauri16","SHKauri16.14c");
Curve("NHPine16","NHPine.14c");
before the radiocarbon dates you wish to assess on the revised timescales.
We thank Mr A Crawford who owns Towai Farm for access to the site and Mr N Parker for providing the wood. This work was part funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology (FRST)—now Ministry for Business, Innovation & Employment (MBIE)- PROP-20224-SFK-UOA), a Royal Society of New Zealand grant, the Australian Research Council (FL100100195 and DP0664898), and the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/H009922/1, NE/I007660/1, NER/A/S/2001/01037 and NE/H007865/1).