Radiocarbon-date assemblages are commonly used as proxies for past human and environmental phenomena. Prominent examples of target phenomena include past population levels and sea level fluctuations. These processes are thought to have affected the amount of organic carbon deposited into the archaeological and/or palaeoenvironmental record. Time-series representing through-time fluctuations in the frequency of radiocarbon samples are, therefore, often used as proxies for such processes. However, there are critical problems with using radiocarbon “dates-as-data” in point-wise comparisons and these problems have gone largely underappreciated. The key problem is that the established proxies are easily misinterpreted. They conflate process variation and chronological uncertainty, which makes them unsuitable for point-wise comparisons aimed at identifying rates of change, comparing variables directly, or estimating parameters in regression models. Here we explore the interpretive and analytical problems in detail in an effort to raise awareness and promote skepticism about the use of the established proxies in point-wise comparisons. We also provide suggestions for future research and point to potential methodological alternatives that may improve the viability of dates-as-data approaches.

放射性碳日期组合通常用作过去人类和环境现象的代理。目标现象的突出例子包括过去的人口水平和海平面波动。据认为，这些过程影响了沉积到考古和/或古环境记录中的有机碳的数量。因此，代表放射性碳样品频率随时间波动的时间序列通常被用作此类过程的代理。但是，在逐点比较中使用放射性碳“日期即数据”存在严重问题，这些问题在很大程度上没有得到重视。关键问题是，已建立的代理容易被误解。它们将过程变化和时间不确定性混为一谈，这使其不适用于旨在确定变化率，直接比较变量或估计回归模型中参数的逐点比较。在这里，我们将详细探讨解释性和分析性问题，以提高人们的认识并促进对已建立的代理在逐点比较中的使用持怀疑态度。我们还为将来的研究提供了建议，并指出了可能会改善日期数据方法可行性的潜在方法替代方法。