Castlepook’s Lone Incision
Radiocarbon dating does not produce a simple ancient calendar. A conventional radiocarbon age measures remaining carbon-14 relative to AD 1950; it must then be calibrated against a curve built from independently dated natural archives. Beyond about 14,000 years ago, those calibration curves rest on combinations of floating tree-ring sequences, lake and marine sediments, corals and cave deposits rather than an unbroken annually counted chronology. At around 34,000 calendar years ago, calibrated ranges are consequently far more meaningful than a single reconstructed year.