The Awbeg Faunal Window
Radiocarbon years are not calendar years. The quantity of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has varied through time, so a laboratory measurement must be calibrated against an internationally maintained curve. At about 34,000 years ago, the conversion may produce broad intervals rather than a precise answer, and the dated material itself may represent only one moment within a longer-lived deposit. A nominal date such as 31,878 BCE must therefore not be treated as the anniversary of a hunt, a migration or a climatic episode.