All archaeological absolute dating of the Iberian Peninsula in one database

Almost 100 archaeologists will gather from 17 to 19 October at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts in a scientific meeting which will mark the beginning of Iber-Crono, a collective database which will contain all of the absolute dating recorded for the Iberian Peninsula, from the Palaeolithic to the Medieval periods.

11/10/2016

The conference “Cronometrías para la Historia de la Península Ibérica” was organised after realising that there was a need to systematise and exhaustively integrate thousands of chronometic datings and their associated historic contexts, all of which had been accumulated since 1950. At the present, access to the information is difficult due to the format in which it is presented, the inconsistency of the associated contexts and the extreme dispersion of the publications in which the information appears.

The proposal is based on the experiences and results of several research projects undertaken by the UAB Laboratori d’Arqueologia Quantitativa, in collaboration with other European laboratories, which have given way to the design of the first database model. This will mark the starting point for the theoretical and methodological debate to be held at the conference.

Iber-Crono will incorporate datings obtained by using radiocarbon, uranium-thorium, potassium-argon, archaeomagnetic and thermoluminescence methods. It has been conceived as an open access tool in which all the results of studies can be incorporated by professionals in archaeology, history, art history, etc. from Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Andorra and other neighbouring regions working on the studies, such as southern France and northern Morocco. In addition to the dating and its bibliographic reference, it will include a description and the technical data of the archaeological context studies, as well as the place of precedence of the samples dated.

The conference will be celebrated at the UAB, the main organising institute which harbours the most important institutions dedicated to the Archaeological Heritage of Catalonia. The organising committee is formed by representatives of the universities of Barcelona, Autònoma de Barcelona, Pompeu Fabra, Rovira Virgili, Girona and Lleida, and the institutes ICREA, CSIC, Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució, Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica, Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya and the Government of Catalonia's Subdirecció General de Patrimoni Arquitectònic, Arqueològic i Paleontològic.

Course in Chronometric Methods
Apart from exchanging scientific results during the conference, the UAB's Laboratori d’Arqueologia Quantitativa has organised courses in chronometic methods for after the conference, which will be open to postgraduate students and archaeology professionals from Spain, portugal, France and Italy. The organisers have invited some of the top leading experts in the field to participate, such as professors Caitlin Buck, Alexandra Bayliss, Marie Anne Vimet and professors Vicente Lull, Francisco Javier Santos, Jorge Sanjurjo. All of the course's didactic material will be published shortly, together with a selection of the best contributions made at the conference, with the aim of creating the first university manual of chronometric techniques.