A RADIOCARBON DATABASE AND ARCHIVE FOR CALIFORNIA AND WESTERN UNITED STATES

A detailed database of nearly 25,000 radiocarbon dates was compiled from a mix of archaeological, geological, pedology, paleo-seismic, and paleoenvironmental studies conducted at thousands of separate locations in the ten States west of the Rocky Mountains (i.e., AZ, CO, CA, ID, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, and WY). The majority of these (n=16,100, ~65%) are from California, with the other states accounting for a little more than one-third of the total. The latter group includes about 2,900 dates from Nevada, 2,150 dates from Oregon, more than 900 dates from Montana, and more than several hundred dates each from Washington and Wyoming. Nearly 60 percent (n=9,523) of the California dates are from archaeological deposits, and another 6,400 are from geological (non-cultural) contexts; the context of 177 dates is undetermined. To improve the quality and analytical power of the database, as much contextual information as possible was added for each date, and the data normalized so it can be sorted, analyzed, and compared in a consistent fashion. It is composed of more than 30 other data categories, such as geographic region, landform, deposit, provenience, material, depth, C12/C13 ratio, reference, location, and elevation, were populated whenever possible. The database can be a powerful tool for many types of research conducted in the American West, and for comparisons at a global level. A formal version of the database is planned to be released in 2015 to make it widely available.