Book review: Index of Dates from Archaeological Sites in Queensland by Sean Ulm and Jill Reid

The Index of Dates from Archaeological Sites in Queensland is an important and timely publication, likely to be of particular value to scholars and other professionals investigating the archaeological history of the state and, more generally, Australia. The authors of the Index also note the need for an easily accessible reference for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, and have presented the new volume in the hope that it will function as such (p.1). The Index is intended as a reference work only (i.e. there is no analysis of the data presented within), and has three primary aims (p.1): to provide a comprehensive list of chronometric determinations for Queensland archaeological sites; to present basic information about these sites; and to provide a list of publications relating to the excavation, laboratory analysis, dating and interpretation of each of the indexed sites. All these aims are achieved admirably.

The volume presents a total of 849 chronometric determinations from 258 archaeological sites in Queensland (including Torres Strait), to the end of the year 2000. The dates are only those undertaken using radiocarbon (both "conventional" and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) determinations), thermoluminescence (TL) or optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL). Determinations on non-cultural deposits at or near archaeological sites are not included in the Index, with the exception of dates from layers immediately above or below cultural deposits in a stratified archaeological site (p.7-8).

The volume begins with a short introductory chapter (9 pages), in which the reason for the publication of the Index is discussed, the methods used to compile the data are presented, and the structure of the volume is described. Notes on the citation of conventional radiocarbon ages, the calibration of radiocarbon dates and the coverage of the Index are included in this chapter, as is a brief section on how to use the Index and the possibility of future updates of the data. Following the introductory chapter, a six page section of explanatory notes introduces the first five "sections" (i.e. tables) in which the data is displayed, and defines the different categories of information presented in each table.

The data is presented in 11 sections. Section 1, "Basic Determination Data", is organised alphabetically by site name, and includes data on Lab. Code, method of analysis (14C, AMS, TL or OSL), conventional radiocarbon age, +/- error (1 standard deviation), calibrated age range (using the intercept method), sample type (marine shell, charcoal etc.) and reference to publication(s) quoting the date. For those wishing to investigate the dates more closely, technical data such as sample species, d13, d14 and D14 are presented in Section 2 ("Advanced Determination Data") and notes on specific problematic dates are presented in Section 3 ("Notes on Individual Determinations"). Further details regarding the dated sites (e.g. lat./long. coordinates, site type, location) are given in Section 4 ("Site Information") and publications relating to each site are listed in Section 5 ("Site References").

These sections represent the bulk of the volume, and the authors are to be commended for presenting the information in an accessible and easily readable form. The presentation of calibrated ranges for each of the radiocarbon determinations is also useful, and well justified (p.6-7), given the incorporation of both marine and terrestrial samples in the Index. The use of a Delta-R value of 11 +/- 5 for all marine samples is supported by previous research, although the authors note that significant variations in this value exist for different locations on the Queensland coast, and marine shell determinations should be considered on an individual basis (p.11). One minor quibble is that the calibrated ranges have not been rounded to the nearest decade, as suggested by the producers of the calibration program used (CALIB4.3; Stuiver and Reimer 1999:Section 1.4.4).

One of the great strengths of the Index is that information can be searched for in a variety of ways. Determinations can be accessed by site name (Sections 1-4), by the principal investigator (Section 6), by their radiocarbon age (Section 8), by their region (Section 9: regions are Central Queensland, Cape York Peninsula, North-West Queensland, South-West Queensland, South-East Queensland), and by their 1:250,000 map sheet name (Section 10). Potential confusion arising from the use of multiple names for the one site are overcome by the list of alternative site names provided in Section 7. The volume concludes with a bibliography listing the works related to each of the dated sites and those cited in the introductory chapter (Section 11: "References Cited").

The thoughtful layout and structure of the volume adds substantially to its value as a reference source, which is already considerable. The Index is a successor to a similarly useful compendium published in 1982 by Michael Kelly, which has become outdated in the intervening two decades. Indeed, the chart on the cover of the volume, showing the huge increase in the number of dates calculated over the last 40 years, indicates simultaneously the enormous amount of work that has gone into the Index, and the speed with which the hard copy will become outdated. This problem will be avoided by the imminent publication of the Index on the World Wide Web and by the periodic publication of updated hard copies, as foreshadowed by the authors (p.8). Ulm and Reid aim to "build on Kelly''s work and to expand its utility", and the appearance of the information in readily available electronic form on the Web will see the full realisation of this ideal.\r\n\r\nIn the editorial introducing the Index, Jay Hall reflects on the debates surrounding archaeological dating that have appeared over the course of his archaeological career, and observes that "more value was sometimes placed on dates/ages than on the substantive and explanatory aspects of archaeology". By liberating researchers from the labour of trawling myriad reports in search of radiometric dates, the Index will help foster just such interpretation and explanation of Queensland''s archaeological heritage.

References

Stuiver, M. and P. Reimer 1999 CALIB 4.1 Manual. http://depts.washington.edu/qil/calib/manual/index.html .