poolDates function

Combine radiocarbon ages from the same event.

Computes a combined weighted mean and error and carries out a statistical test for internal consistency.

poolDates(x, errors, id = NULL, F14C = TRUE)

Arguments

• x: A vector of uncalibrated radiocarbon ages
• errors: A vector of standard deviations corresponding to each estimated radiocarbon age
• id: A vector of event/object identifiers to be matched with radiocarbon ages. If not supplied all radiocarbon ages are assumed to be from the same event/object.
• F14C: Whether calculations are carried out in F14C space or not. Default is TRUE.

Returns

A data.frame containing the weighted radiocarbon ages and errors for each event and the associated T-values and P-values.

Details

The function calculates combined weighted error mean and standard error for each set of radiocarbon ages associated with the same event or object and computes a significance test for evaluating internal consistency following Ward and Wilson's method (1978). This is equivalent to OxCal's R_Combine routine.

Examples

x = c(4300,4330,5600,5603,5620)
errors = c(20,30,30,30,45)
id = c(1,1,2,2,2)
poolDates(x,errors,id)

References

Ward, G. K., & Wilson, S. R. (1978). Procedures for Comparing and Combining Radiocarbon Age Determinations: A Critique. Archaeometry, 20(1), 19–31. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4754.1978.tb00208.x