SAKAMOTO Minoru

National Museum of Japanese History

Professor

One of my academic themes is to obtain high-precision numerical age through radiocarbon (carbon-14) dating. Although radiocarbon dating covers about 50,000 years, from the Paleolithic to the modern periods, higher precision is required later in the period. Endeavor has been made in a scientific way.

Radiocarbon dating requires a calibration to convert radiocarbon age into calendar age. In the northern hemisphere, IntCal, the radiocarbon age dataset based on European and North American tree rings of which numerical age was determined by tree-ring dating, is applied in general. However, radiocarbon age of Japanese tree rings sometimes does not agree well with IntCal in some period. In this project, I would like to pursuit regional effects on calibration curve for radiocarbon dating to contribute numerical age estimation of Northeast Asia.