Something just stumbled on. The Hallstatt Plateau. At first glance, you might think (like I did) "what's that, something to do with Hallstatt in Austria?" - but you'd be wrong. It's a chuffing great big, euphemistically named, problem in Radiocarbon Dating.
The Hallstatt plateau is a term used in archaeology that refers to a consistently flat area on graphs that plot radiocarbon dating against calendar dates. Radiocarbon dates of around 2450 BP (Before Present) always calibrate to ca. 800-400 BC, no matter the measurement precision
Eh? Run that by me again?
It is impossible to sensibly resolve the radiocarbon dates of any samples whose true ages lie between 400 and 800 BC.
e.g.
http://www.academia.edu/1683496/The_lat ... strategies
But why? It seems like something went BANG c. 800BC and chucked loads of Carbon 14 into the atmosphere, thereby screwing the whole methodology of carbon dating. It seems to coincide with the start of what "they" call the Bronze Dark Collapse, and megalithic culture and trade started working part-time for c.400 years.
I wouldn't mind so much except I'd always thought Radiocarbon Dating was somehow more reliable than the opinion of Orthodox Archeologists.