There must be someone else from the lab that knew where the records came from, hope someone with more knowledge of German institutions than I anwers.

Did you have a look in past Radiocarbon issues? They are freely available and contain lists about 14C dates published in the 1970s and early 1980s.

I did look, but the samples I am looking for are not in there

Dear Ms Rivera-Collazo,

Your question brings up a very important issue. We now have over 60 years of radiocarbon and other isotope dating. Many of the labs are no longer in operation, and many of the people who had the dates run are dead. We really need a database that contains this data much like the data bases collected by the National Climate Data Center or similar centers for data in Europe. I worked for three years in the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at Washington State University from 1982 to 1985, and although some of our dates are published in the journal Radiocarbon, I don't think that all of them were. I have sent an inquiry to Beta Analytic regarding this issue...who knows they may even have such a data base...or know if one exists. I am waiting on the response from Beta Analytic and will pass it on to you. Sincerely, Peter Wigand

Dear Ms Rivera-Collazo, 

Here is the answer I received..it is a bit unsettling, because it revealed something I hadn't known...

There are several groups out there compiling dates on a regional basis. The Canadian Geological Survey put out a database a number of years ago. So regional efforts are on-going. Someone in Ireland doing the same.

The Radiocarbon journal was originally intended to be a resource for such information but its datelists went by the wayside a number of decades ago.

Unfortunately for us (Beta Analytic), we lost all our dates prior to 1992 in Hurricane Andrew. They were in a mini warehouse with an aluminum roof. Andrew took the roof and all the records and spread them across the Everglades . . and beyond. Of course nowadays we redundantly backed up locally and to the cloud. 

Were you able to find any of the original people who ran Teledyne?

Good luck,

Peter Wigand

Dear Peter

Many thanks for your help and inquiry. Certainly it is unsettling the fact that the records might be lost forever. If that happened to Beta, what can be expected of laboratories that are long gone, such as Teledyne? I have not found any additional information of the laboratory, so I don't have hopes of finding the original information now. 

Again, many thanks,

Isabel Rivera-Collazo (Dr.)

If the dates appeared useful, they should be published somewhere in a Journal that you could try to obtain through interliberary loan.  However, not all dates that come back from the laboratory turn out to date what researchers wanted.  Only those that fit with the overall pattern of dates needed tend to be used in papers.  This may seem unscientific, but problems can occur through contamination or use of too small a sample to obtain a satisfactory degree of accuracy in the dating. 

Do you know where the samples came from, and if so, do you have a good bibliography from that time for that location?  Theses often include a discussion of the results that came back from lab. analyses, together with reasons for not necessarily using all the dates.  Sometimes, the samples were poorly chosen and turn out to give dates that are not helpful, since they are ambiguous.

Remember too, in the 70's, it was not compulsory for the large number of results to all be published. The people who paid for the analyses decided whether and where the results could be published, although the laboratories tried to encourage the publication of their results in Radiocarbon or elsewhere since these were a good form of advertisement for the labs.

Stuart.

There are two compilations of dates by Rouse, Allaire and later Boomert.  The first was published in Chronologies in New World Archaeology, but the second was never published.  I have copies in the Bullen Library if you are interested.

Dear Stuart: 

Sadly no. There is no information at all, no good reports, no additional bibliography. Only a mention in a single report in a magazine of local distribution. The mention consists of an interpreted calendar date and the lab number in brackets. Nothing else. I looked in Radiocarbon, but did not find anything else. Maybe they were not considered important? But these are the only ones for the site. 

Dear Bill: 

I would certainly be interested. These dates were collected by Ovidio Dávila in the 70s. I spoke to Reniel briefly, and he did not find anything else either, but if there might be additional info among the dates you have there, it could be a good excuse to visit. 

It apparently did not get refiled properly.  I'll have to look for it.  More soon

The three dates are not in either of Rouse's compilations. Rouse has I- dates larger than 9248 in his list, so I suspect he wasn't aware of the ones you are looking for.  Which site?

Try the Radiocarbon journal

Bill: Tierras Nuevas, Manatí

Ana: I did try, before posting the question. That was my first option. 

Talking only of radiocarbon: it is perhaps the most useful environmental radioactive tracer in geohydrology as its time scale fits exactly that of larger groundwater systems. In my career as isotope hydrologist I have used it extensively and successfully to come to understand the basic mechanisms of such systems in relation to its hydro-geology that is all too often ignored. In water resources investigations the unfortunate concept of carbon14 "age dating" of water has taken centre stage against which Maloszewski and Zuber against decades ago. I seriously question it giving chapter and verse in an upcoming paper on the re-interpretation of a unique artesian system in south-eastern Namibia.

How to find "old" radiocarbon data?

I presume you refer to data still in whatever laboratory archives that has survived from up to 60 years ago, that has not in some way been published and accessible. There is no single simple answer to this.

We are here dealing with a) the arrival of AMS and then b) the great digital divide. Unless laboratories digitised their data lists - very slim chance. My own laboratory at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg that still exists in different hands concentrated on hydrology. Another at the CSIR in Pretoria, mainly in archeology and also hydrology, was better at record-keeping but the fate of that data is uncertain as it has closed, as did several other older laboratories elsewhere.

There had been an initiative, driven by myself (long-retired), Siep Talma (obiit) and Mebus Geyh in Hanover, to erect a digital hydrological isotope data base for Africa that was far from complete but could still exist. With the aging of the participants, the initiative ended.

I have the same problem tracking down Teledyne Isotopes dates for Colorado in the 1970s and 80s. I hope you find a reliable source.

Same here, looking for any information on Teledyne pretreatment and measurement procedures for I-7028 and I-9220. I believe I-7028 was measured in 1973; I-9220 in 1976. They are part of a set of 18 measurements on the same mammoth from a variety of labs using a wide range of techniques. Thanks

I suspect we're out of luck on Teledyne Isotopes. Best bet is to hope for carefully preserved museum collections for resubmittal to modern labs. That's what I'm doing for my current study.

Our experience in South Africa involved colleagues in Germany who were planning, on the same line as us, to develop a data base that involved not, as in the USA mainly Teledyne but various labs in South Africa and elsewhere. Unfortunately, a key colleague here who was pivotal died prematurely and similar deaths in Germany have can now collectively no longer work on the incomplete data base of easily 5000 potential entries along with other much supportive information on i.a. groundwater that could provide valuable resource for future resource evaluation efforts in a world that increasingly has to rely on it for sheer survival. We are in our eighties and neither the strength nor the time of life left to pursue this.

It really is a tragic but very real situation.

I only saw this question. The lab codes give information about the lab. Sometimes lab evolved but they still answer questions about the 14C ages that were produced. Good luck!

I also have some information for radiocarbon dates from Teledyne, but it is largely an enigma. I spent considerable time looking for the original information, but was never able to track down a lab number or raw data, just a published calendar year date. I hope you have better luck than I did.

Teledyne (by the way NOT in Germany as proposed earlier) is really tricky. I also tried to find out about data produced by them. You maybe could ask the host institution (university) that hosted the lab whether they still have the original data records. Another possibility is to look for publications that report this data. Sometimes at that time information regarding lab procedures is being noted as a footnote. I found the lab procedure for y sample fo interest like this. If this does not help, I´ll try to help you contact the other labs, if you like.

Best wishes, Susanne

I'm also looking for originals from Telfedyne Isotopes. Hoping somebody can publish the original data.