CARBON- 14 AGE DETERMINATION — F. H. H. ROBERTS 345 



ical evidence it had been estimated that the weir was in use just prior to 

 2000 B. C. (Antevs, 1943). Hence it appears that the people who 

 built and used the weir may have been contemporaneous with those 

 who lived at the Frontenac Lake, Lamoka, and Kentucky sites. These 

 dates from the eastern United States are somewhat older than had 

 been anticipated and shoAv that migration to that area was relatively 

 early. 



There are some generally comparable dates for the Old World and 

 as the testing continues there undoubtedly will be more. Wheat and 

 barley grain from a pit in the Neolithic Fayum A Period in Egypt 

 gave the age 6,095 ± 250, which is about 1,000 years later than originally 

 estimated by archeologists for the remains found there. Charcoal 

 from house floors at EH-Omari, near Cairo, Egypt, tested 5,256 ±230, 

 the period represented being tentatively identified as IVIiddle Pre- 

 dynastic. A slab of wood from a roof beam of the tomb of Vizier 

 Hemaka of the First Dynasty, at Sakkara, Egypt, ran an average of 

 4,883 ±200 which is in the previously accepted range of 4,700 to 5,100 

 years for that dynasty. A cypress beam from the tomb of Sneferu 

 at Meydum, Egypt, tested an average 4,802 ±210 which is within the 

 range of error for the age determined from archeological evidence 

 and the Egyptian calendar. There are other dates of lesser magnitude 

 for Egypt as well and they agree rather closely with the radiocarbon 

 results (Braidwood et al., 1951). Fairly well-preserved land-snail 

 shells from basal levels at Jarmo, Iraq, a Kurdish hill-country site 

 lying on the flanks of the "Fertile Crescent" north and east of classic 

 Mesopotamia, tested 6,707±320 years. That site has been considered, 

 on t3'pological grounds, to be the earliest village remains thus far 

 excavated in western Asia. The carbon- 14 age is about 2,000 years 

 younger than had been estimated by archeological reasoning. A piece 

 of charred wood from a Neolithic lakeside settlement at Ehensidc 

 Tarn, England, showed a carbon- 14 age of 4,964 ±300. The conven- 

 tional dating for such remains has- been 4,000 years. Charcoal from 

 a feature considered to be late Neolithic and to belong to the first phase 

 of the monument at Stonehenge, England, tested 3,798 ±275. On the 

 other side of the world charcoal from part of the structural remains 

 of a house found in the bottom levels of the Ubayama shell mound, 

 about 10 miles west of Tokyo, Japan, had an average age of 4,564 ±220. 

 That is supposed to be the oldest house site in Japan. Charcoal from 

 a higher level at the same mound showed 4,513 ±300. 



Curiously enough, Alaska, which should give the oldest archeologi- 

 cal dates in the Western Hemisphere if the migration theory for the 

 populating of the Ncav World from northeast Asia is correct, thus far 

 has shown nothing older than 5,993 ±280 for a habitation site. That 

 date was obtained from charcoal and willows from the bottom level 

 of a cave containing evidence of at least two different cultures. Arti- 



