This paper is a response to criticism by Carson (2020) concerning the age of the Unai Bapot archaeological site in the Mariana Islands. Of specific contention are supposed errors in the marine radiocarbon (14C) research reported by Petchey et al. (2017). According to Carson, this work produced marine reservoir offsets (ΔR) of “suspiciously wide variance from each other … and those results were incompatible with the site’s reported stratigraphy and dating (Carson 2008) as well as with other previously calculated marine reservoir corrections in the Mariana Islands (Carson 2010: 3).” This statement is misleading on all three points. Our reply discusses the problems encountered when dating shells from near-shore “marine” environments where terrestrial input, in particular hard water, may complicate date interpretation. We outline a cautionary tale relevant to any researcher using “marine” shell dates to develop regional archaeological chronologies in regions dominated by limestone.

中文翻译：

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澄清马里亚纳群岛初始定居地平线的年龄和硬水的影响：对卡森的回应（2020 年）

本文是对 Carson (2020) 关于马里亚纳群岛 Unai Bapot 考古遗址年龄的批评的回应。具体争论的是海洋放射性碳中的假定错误（14C) Petchey 等人报告的研究。（2017）。根据 Carson 的说法，这项工作产生了海洋储层偏移量（ΔR) “彼此之间存在可疑的广泛差异……并且这些结果与该站点报告的地层学和测年 (Carson 2008) 以及与马里亚纳群岛其他先前计算的海洋储层校正 (Carson 2010: 3) 不相容。” 这种说法在所有三点上都具有误导性。我们的答复讨论了在对近岸“海洋”环境中的贝壳进行测年时遇到的问题，在这些环境中，陆地输入，特别是硬水，可能会使日期解释复杂化。我们概述了一个与使用“海洋”贝壳日期来开发以石灰岩为主的地区的区域考古年表相关的任何研究人员的警示故事。