PRECISION CALENDAR-YEAR DATING OF THE ELM DECLINE IN A SPHAGNUM-PEAT BOG IN SOUTHERN SWEDEN

The cause of the mid-Holocene aim decline in northwestern Europe and i ts relation to the contemporaneous transition from Mesolithic to Neoli thic economy are still unclear, partly owing to the lack of a precise, calibrated chronology. Matching of a sequence of C-14 dates to the ca libration curve in combination with accurate C-14 dating allows high-p recision dating of paleoecological events. We have completed high-reso lution dating of a Sphagnum-peat sequence from Agerods Mosse in southe rnmost Sweden, The basis for selecting C-14 samples was pollen analysi s at 1 cm intervals. Nine C-14 dates, covering an interval of ca. 500 calendar years around the elm decline, showed that this event occurred in Agerods Mosse within a few decades ca. 3770 BC.