User:Smallchief/cooper site

Resuming the discussion about BP, Radiocarbon years, and BCE
I'm not a scientist, just someone who is interested in pre-history in the Americas. There's a lot of confusion and contradictions in Wikipedia articles dating pre-historic human activities in the Americas. For example, in the scholarly and popular literature and in Wikipedia articles, I found three different -- and often contradictory -- dating systems used for the Folsom tradition and related articles: first, radiocarbon years (or uncalibrated radiocarbon years) which date the Folsom tradition between 11,000 and 10,000 years ago; second, more recent and presumably more accurate calibrated radiocarbon years which date Folsom from 13,000 to 12,000 years ago; and third, Before Present (BP) which cites either of the two ranges of dates. BP will also become more inaccurate with time if one doesn't know (and most don't) that BP doesn't mean "before present" but before 1950.

One example of why trying to get dating right is important is the transition of the Clovis culture (mammoth hunting) to the Folsom tradition (bison hunting) and the ongoing controversy about the role of humans in the extinction of many species of megafauna in the Americas. Was the extinction due to human hunting or climate change or something else? Did mammoths become extinct at the same time as the end of mammoth hunting by the Clovis people or a thousand years earlier or later? Did the Clovis people hunt the mammoth to extinction? Accurate dating is crucial to answering that question.

Moreover, for the average reader the different dates in Wikipedia articles for prehistoric events are confusing. All three dating systems -- radiocarbon years, calibrated radiocarbon years, and BP -- are cited and "reliable sources" exist for all.

If my understanding of the issue of three dating systems is correct, I would advocate that BCE (or BC) based on calibrated radiocarbon dates be the preferred usage in Wikipedia articles rather than BP or uncalibrated radiocarbon dating. BCE is more familiar to the reader and avoids the now mostly minor but increasing inaccuracy of BP.