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| Dartmouth Radiocarbon Laboratory | |
|---|---|
| Name | Dartmouth Radiocarbon Laboratory |
| Established | 1972 |
| Location | Hanover, New Hampshire |
| Affiliation | Dartmouth College |
| Type | Research laboratory |
| Director | (varies) |
| Website | (official site) |
Dartmouth Radiocarbon Laboratory is a scientific facility at Dartmouth College specializing in radiocarbon dating and isotope analysis. It serves archaeologists, geologists, paleoclimatologists, and ecologists by providing accelerator mass spectrometry and conventional decay-counting measurements. The laboratory has been involved with projects connected to museums, universities, government agencies, and international research consortia.
The laboratory was founded in the early 1970s at Dartmouth College during a period of expansion in radiometric facilities across North America alongside institutions such as University of California, Berkeley, Cornell University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, and Max Planck Society centers. Early collaborations linked Dartmouth with the National Science Foundation, Smithsonian Institution, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, American Museum of Natural History, and regional institutions including University of New Hampshire and Colby College. Directors and researchers have engaged with figures and organizations like Willard Libby-era institutions, teams associated with the Radiocarbon journal community, and panels convened by the National Academy of Sciences. Over decades the lab contributed dates to work involving Vikings, Mississippian culture, Paleoindian sites, and paleoenvironmental reconstructions comparable to studies at Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory and Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The facility houses sample preparation suites, clean rooms, and instruments comparable to those at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Equipment historically included gas proportional counters and liquid scintillation counters used in labs such as University of Arizona and modern accelerator mass spectrometers similar to models employed at ETH Zurich, University of Bern, and W.M. Keck Observatory facilities. Lab infrastructure supports chemistry work like acid-base-acid pretreatment used broadly at British Museum laboratories, carbonate and collagen extraction routines applied at Natural History Museum, London and bone demineralization protocols used in labs collaborating with Smithsonian Institution. Storage and archive practices reflect standards employed by institutions including Library of Congress conservation labs and archival repositories at Harvard University.
Research encompasses calibration, sample pretreatment, and interlaboratory comparison studies aligned with protocols from INTCAL networks and chronological frameworks promoted by the Radiocarbon community. Methods include accelerator mass spectrometry workflows analogous to those at University of Groningen and chemical pretreatment chains referenced in publications from University of Oxford teams. The laboratory has addressed reservoir effect issues related to studies by NOAA and modeled by groups at University of Bern, while engaging with dendrochronological calibration series developed at University of Arizona, University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, and Cologne Radiocarbon Laboratory. Isotope ratio analyses connect to research traditions at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and University of Zurich stable isotope groups.
The lab provided key dates for regional archaeology projects in New England and northeastern North America alongside work at Plymouth Plantation, Jamestown Settlement, and investigations of Hopewell tradition-period sites similar to studies by Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Contributions extended to palaeoclimate reconstructions akin to analyses at Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory and coral chronologies comparable to Australian Institute of Marine Science efforts. The laboratory supported human paleoecology and megafauna extinction research echoing collaborations with University of Colorado Boulder and University of Alberta. It participated in intercomparison efforts with OxA-style labs and contributed data used in syntheses like those developed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change authors and regional studies associated with US Geological Survey.
Collaborative partners have included Dartmouth College departments, regional museums such as Montshire Museum of Science, national agencies including the National Science Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and international centers like University of Cambridge and ETH Zurich. Affiliations extend to consortiums and professional bodies including the Radiocarbon editorial community, the International Union for Quaternary Research networks, and cross-disciplinary projects with Yale University, Brown University, Columbia University, Princeton University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers.
The laboratory provides hands-on training for Dartmouth students and visiting scholars, paralleling teaching models from University of California, Los Angeles and summer schools run by groups at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Training covers sample chemistry, contamination avoidance methods used at British Geological Survey, and mass spectrometry operation techniques similar to courses held at University of Arizona and University of Groningen. Graduate and undergraduate collaborations include thesis supervision connected with departments such as Geology, Earth Sciences, and Anthropology at Dartmouth and partner institutions including Colgate University and Middlebury College.
The lab’s radiocarbon determinations have informed publications in journals like Nature, Science, Quaternary Science Reviews, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and have been cited by researchers at Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Michigan, and University of California, Berkeley. Its datasets contribute to regional chronologies used by federal and state agencies such as US Forest Service and National Park Service. The laboratory has been recognized in archaeological and geoscience communities for methodological rigor alongside peer facilities like Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit and CAMs-equipped centers.