Mineralized Remains as Adjacent Proxy for Radiocarbon Dating

Since the 1950s, radiocarbon dating of archeological remains has evolved significantly with the advent of new instruments, protocols, and redesigned concepts. Here, we show that the recovery of chronological information "stored" locally can be achieved by the selective dating of carbonates present in adjacent mineralized organic materials. We present results from the iconic Iron Age site of Creney-le-Paradis (Aube, France). The ¹⁴C ages extracted using an innovative selective strategy provide new evidence for the chronology of the foundation of the site. We show that the copper carbonate accretions retained the signature of an anthropogenic humus layer, accurately dated between 808 and 790 BC, allowing us to infer human activity associated with the foundation of the burial mound. This work opens the way for the development of spatially resolved dating imagery within sites, where the analysis of series of microsamples could document the chronology of their formation.