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Radiocarbon dating a hearth from 2019 changed my whole view on fieldwork
I sent a charcoal sample from what I thought was a Bronze Age pit in Kent to a lab last month. It came back dated to 2019, which is when I remember a group of students having a campfire near that exact spot. The kicker is the layers above it looked undisturbed, so I never questioned the context. My mentor just laughed and said 'garbage in, garbage out' when I told him. Has anyone else had a modern contamination ruin a sample? How do you screen for that before sending stuff off?
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