Abstract

With the advent of the AMS approach to Radiocarbon dating in which individual atoms are counted, a great many more items became dating candidates as only milligram size samples were required. The Radiocarbon analysis of ceramic materials was high on this list and the success of the analysis of charred food remains in pottery is well documented. However, the analysis of organic tempering agents in ceramic materials has been plagued by many difficulties which are not immediately apparent to the analyst. This talk will discuss why these difficulties are intrinsic to the material, based on case histories of a variety of samples.