SUMMARIZING A SET OF RADIOCARBON DETERMINATIONS - A ROBUST APPROACH

A general (Bayesian) method for summarizing sets of radiocarbon determ inations is presented, combining archaeological a priori consideration s with the radiocarbon determinations to obtain dates on the calendar scale. The problems of outliers (which are common in radiocarbon datin g) and robustness are addressed. Outliers are defined within this cont ext and an extended model to cope with outliers is also presented. Two examples are presented to illustrate the techniques proposed.