Maczkowski, Andrej; Pearson, Charlotte; Francuz, John; Giagkoulis, Tryfon; Szidat, Sönke; Wacker, Lukas; Bolliger, Matthias; Kotsakis, Kostas; Hafner, Albert (20 October 2023). Absolutely dating the European Neolithic through a rapid 14C excursion. Research Square 10.21203/rs.3.rs-3419721/v1
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The discovery of abrupt radiocarbon (14C) excursions (Solar Energetic Particle events, or Miyake events) in sequences of radiocarbon measurements from calendar dated tree-rings, has yielded new opportunities to assign absolute, calendar dates to undated wood samples from widely ranging contexts in history and prehistory. We report on an important tree-ring and 14C-dating based study, which secures the Neolithic site of Dispilio, Northern Greece, a key site for the Aegean Neolithic, in absolute, calendar-dated time using the Miyake event of 5259 BC. The last ring of the 303-year-long juniper tree-ring chronology from Dispilio is dated to 5140 BC. Dispilio is thus the first prehistoric site absolutely dated through a 14C signature (Miyake event), but also the first absolutely, calendar-year dated prehistoric site in the wider Mediterranean region.