Christopher Bronk Ramsey is a British physicist, mathematician and specialist in

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...

. He is a professor at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

and was the Director of the

Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art The Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art (RLAHA) is a laboratory at the University of Oxford, England which develops and applies scientific methods to the study of the past. It was established in 1955 and its first director wa ...

(RLAHA) from 2014 until 2019. He is a member of

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 126 ...

and a Bodley Fellow. His doctorate, completed in 1987, included the first successful implementation of carbon dioxide gas as a target for radiocarbon dating via

accelerator mass spectrometry Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is a form of mass spectrometry that accelerates ions to extraordinarily high kinetic energies before mass analysis. The special strength of AMS among the different methods of mass spectrometry is its ability t ...

. In the early 1990s, Bronk Ramsey became interested in the application of

Bayesian statistics Bayesian statistics ( or ) is a theory in the field of statistics based on the Bayesian interpretation of probability, where probability expresses a ''degree of belief'' in an event. The degree of belief may be based on prior knowledge about ...

to the analysis of radiocarbon data. In 1994, he authored OxCal, an online radiocarbon calibration program. Bronk Ramsey has made significant contributions to various chronological issues, including the

Minoan eruption The Minoan eruption was a catastrophic volcanic eruption that devastated the Aegean island of Thera (also called Santorini) circa 1600 BCE. It destroyed the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as communities and agricultural areas on near ...

Thera Santorini (, ), officially Thira (, ) or Thera, is a Greek island in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from the mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago formed by the Santorini caldera. It is the southernmos ...

, the British Neolithic, the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa and the

Egyptian chronology The Conventional Egyptian chronology reflects the broad scholarly consensus about the outline and many details of the chronology of Ancient Egypt. It places the beginning of the Old Kingdom in the 27th century BC, the beginning of the Middle Kin ...

. His recent work has focused on improving the

radiocarbon calibration Radiocarbon dating measurements produce ages in "radiocarbon years", which must be converted to calendar ages by a process called calibration. Calibration is needed because the atmospheric / ratio, which is a key element in calculating radiocarbo ...

record and synthesizing radiocarbon data with other chronometric information. In October 2012, Bronk Ramsey published the first wholly terrestrial radiocarbon calibration record extending back to the limit of the technique. He is a member of the International Calibration (IntCal) group.

Early life

Bronk Ramsey was born to English mother Sylvia and American biologist J. Ramsey Bronk and grew up in

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

with his brother Richard.

Selected publications

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References

External links

Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art

Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit
{{DEFAULTSORT:bronk ramsey, christopher Fellows of Merton College, Oxford English people of American descent English people of Dutch descent English people of Swedish descent English physicists Scientists from York