The Lake Suigetsu radiocarbon timescale and East Asian archaeology

Record summary

Lake Suigetsu’s annually laminated sediments provide a high-resolution palaeoenvironmental and radiocarbon record used to calibrate archaeological chronologies across East Asia. It matters for comparing migration, climate shifts and cultural transitions because radiocarbon ages from sites in Japan, China and Southeast Asia depend on calibration curves and regional reservoir effects. The record is not itself evidence of a migration or catastrophe, and correlation between climate signals and human behavior remains interpretive. Researchers must distinguish the lake sequence from the calibration models built from it.