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Radiocarbon dating with temporal order constraints
Author(s) -
Nicholls Geoff,
Jones Martin
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of the royal statistical society: series c (applied statistics)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.205
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9876
pISSN - 0035-9254
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9876.00250
Subject(s) - prior probability , radiocarbon dating , bayesian probability , bayes' theorem , distribution (mathematics) , computer science , bayes factor , econometrics , artificial intelligence , mathematics , geology , paleontology , mathematical analysis
Bayesian methods are now widely used for analysing radiocarbon dates. We find that the non‐informative priors in use in the literature generate a bias towards wider date ranges which does not in general reflect substantial prior knowledge. We recommend using a prior in which the distribution of the difference between the earliest and latest dates has a uniform distribution. We show how such priors are derived from a simple physical model of the deposition and observation process. We illustrate this in a case‐study, examining the effect that various priors have on the reconstructed dates. Bayes factors are used to help to decide model choice problems.