Radiocarbon dating of Mesolithic human remains in Belgium and Luxembourg

This, the sixth of a series on the chronology of Mesolithic human remains, uses, with one exception, identical methods to the previous paper in the series (Meiklejohn and Woodman 2012). Date calibration employs CALIB version 6.1 with dates reported at a 1 range. The exception to previous use is that no marine correction is applied to any finds, based on two considerations. Critical is that “(a) dietary protein source based mainly on terrestrial mammals, with the possible addition of some freshwater components, is … supported by the isotopic composition of … Mesolithic human collagen from (Belgium and Luxembourg), with few differences occurring between individuals” (Bocherens et al. 2007, 18). The second is that 13C levels range from -19.4 to -24.8, in clear support of this conclusion. The one exception, Atsebach in Luxembourg (13C = -17.3), is dated to the Neolithic (see section 2.3). Absence of a marine dietary component is also consistent with the distance of all sites from an ocean source, though Van Neer (1997; Van Neer et al. 2007) reports evidence for fishing in Magdalenian deposits from the Meuse Basin at Bois Laiterie and Chaleux, both discussed below. As previously, we stress the importance of reporting raw 14C laboratory values. Calibrations are a function of calibration engine, reservoir correction value, and marine and terrestrial isotopic limits used. Calibrated dates published alone are very difficult to interpret.