The Silent Reindeer Femur
Radiocarbon laboratories measure ages in radiocarbon years, not BCE calendar years. Those measurements must then be calibrated against changing atmospheric carbon levels, producing ranges rather than an exact historical date. At ages beyond thirty millennia, the uncertainties are especially significant. Moreover, the climatic stages used by Quaternary scientists are broad intervals reconstructed from marine sediments, ice cores and terrestrial evidence; their boundaries do not behave like the edges of political eras. It is better to say that 31,822 BCE lies approximately within late MIS 3 than to pretend that it marks a precise turning point.