Castlepook’s Reindeer Horizon
Archaeologists use radiocarbon determinations, stratigraphy, faunal study and geological dating rather than historical chronologies for this period. Radiocarbon years are not identical to calendar years and must be calibrated against changing atmospheric carbon levels; even then, dates are expressed as ranges with statistical uncertainty. The numerical year 31,923 BCE therefore should not be mistaken for an anniversary of a hunt, a migration or a climatic event. It is best understood as an approximate point within a long Upper Palaeolithic world, perhaps roughly 34,000 years before the conventional radiocarbon “present” of 1950.