More than two thousand materials have been dated so far in the National 1MV Accelerated Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Laboratory of the TUBITAK Marmara Research Center (MAM) Institute of Earth and Marine Sciences (YDBE), which started its service in 2016.
More than two hundred projects supported by Carbon 14 analyses
Established to meet the needs in the fields of earth sciences, archaeology, environmental sciences and forensic medicine in our country, the laboratory has so far supported more than two hundred projects with Carbon 14 analysis for dating purposes.
In 2021, the project "Investigation of Neolithic Period Dates of Bilecik Bahçelievler Excavation" was initiated with an agreement with Bilecik Municipality. This project, led by TÜBİTAK MAM researchers, aims to examine and date the materials found during the excavations of the Bahçelievler Neolithic settlement of Bilecik Municipality in the TÜBİTAK MAM YDBE AMS laboratory. During the project, dating studies will be carried out on 15 different organic residual materials suitable for measurement.
Carbon 14 dating studies will be carried out by the TÜBİTAK MAM project team, the excavation is headed by the Bilecik Museum and the excavation consultant is Assoc. Prof. Erkan Fidan. It is the first project carried out jointly by the researchers of the Carbon 14 laboratory in our country with the excavation team. Radiocarbon studies are very costly. When radiocarbon experts are not involved in excavation studies such as Carbon 14, where absolute dating results are critical, inaccurate sample selections can negatively affect such studies.
In this project, thanks to the support to be provided to the excavation team with radiocarbon (Carbon 14) knowledge, maximum different data will be produced with a minimum number of materials to be measured. In this way, it is aimed to increase the efficiency of the dating work of the excavation.
Why is it important to date this site?
Bahçelievler is the oldest known settlement in Western Anatolia and the village life started 9000 years ago and continued for about 1000 years. In addition to round or oval shaped houses built in hut style, terracotta, bone and stone tools and thousands of ceramic sherds belonging to the people who apparently lived by agriculture and animal husbandry were found here. Among the finds are a bone musical instrument and amulet, terracotta animal figurines and spindle whorls for spinning wool, marble and serpentine stone axes, as well as 11 human skeletons buried in the empty spaces between the houses.
