The Lebyazhinka Burial Ground (Middle Volga Region, Russia): New ¹⁴C Dates and the Reservoir Effect

We report new accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14 C) dates of bones from humans, animals, and fish from grave 12 of the Lebyazhinka V Eneolithic burial ground in the middle Volga River region, Russia. Earlier conventional dates established a chronology. This has to be adjusted by new insights: the date has to be corrected for reservoir effects. For this purpose we redated bone from a human, and for herbivore and freshwater fauna from the same context, and included measurements of the stable isotopes δ 13 C and δ 15 N. The reservoir offset for the human appears to be about 700 14 C yr.