Determination and Radiocarbon Dating of Marine Mollusc Fossils in Ancient Sea Shelf of Central Java Indonesia

Mollusc phylum is one of the most adaptive animal groups on Earth. They occupy and thrive in incredibly diverse habitats. Their distribution in the fossil record is equally diverse. Indonesia is one of the country with marine mollusc fossil variety, such as in the archaeological site of Sangiran, Patiayam (Ancient Muria Strait) and Grobogan – Central Java. Radiocarbon Dating is the method for dating analysis using ¹⁴C. By measuring ¹⁴C content, we can estimate how long ago the fossils died. Radiocarbon dating is an extremely useful technique for determining the ages of geological materials (that have some organic-derived carbon in them). Field sampling had found variety of marine mollusc fossils such us 1) Sangiran: Dosinia sp., Telescopium telescopium, Anadara sp., and Dosinia insularum; 2) Patiayam (Ancient Muria Strait): Pseudodon vondenbuschianus, Elongaria orientalis, Conus (Pionoconus) sp., Ampullina bandongensis, Anadara pilula and Filopaludina javanica; 3) Grobogan: Antigona chemnitzii, Cultelus dilatatus, Plotia scabra and Tibia modesta. Mollusc fossils sample was analysed using Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon system. It is a good method for dating specific samples. The result showed that Sangiran as an ancient deepsea has fossils age 38710 – 31947 years, then Patiayam (Ancient Muria Strait) with fossils age 26248 – 11994. Mollusc fossils from Grobogan was the youngest area has fossils age 25692 – 6479 years. (paper)