Elephant Hall’s Pleistocene Ledger
Radiocarbon years are not identical to calendar years. Atmospheric carbon levels have varied through time, so radiocarbon measurements require calibration against independently dated records. At around 34,000 years ago the resulting calibrated spans can be broad; an apparently exact BCE year should never conceal that uncertainty. Nor should every specimen dated to roughly this era be treated as contemporary with every other. A cave collection may contain bones deposited centuries or millennia apart, while an animal’s death date says nothing certain about when a cave was entered by people.