Current activities at the Seoul National University AMS facility

Our 14C AMS activities have attained an annual throughput of ca. 1000 unknowns, however our 10Be AMS system development has not been completed yet. Meanwhile, we have diversified our research activities to other areas related to 14C AMS in order to broaden the application of our accelerator and to provide additional support to the local archeological community. An external beam PIXE system has been constructed on our MPS beam-line and obsidians from Paleolithic sites were investigated for provenance studies. The results showed that PIXE measurements of obsidians, when combined with neutron activation analysis, is a very powerful tool for provenance studies. Measurements of the natural radioactivity of the U-series have been carried out, not only for U/Th bone dating, but also as an investigation of a possibility of characterizing paleosols from various Paleolithic sites. The criteria for the validity of 14C ages derived from soil organics have been obtained. As an example of the successful application of our 14C AMS facility, the dating of burials at the Tavan Tolgoi site in Mongolia, containing the burials of artifacts from the era of Chinggis Khan, is described.