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Concept
Before Present
Summary
Before Present (BP) years, also known as "time before present" or "years before present (YBP)", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use 1 January 1950 as the commencement date (epoch) of the age scale. The abbreviation "BP" has been interpreted retrospectively as "Before Physics", which refers to the time before nuclear weapons testing artificially altered the proportion of the carbon isotopes in the atmosphere, which scientists must now account for.
In a convention that is not always observed, many sources restrict the use of BP dates to those produced with radiocarbon dating; the alternative notation RCYBP stands for the explicit "radio carbon years before present".
The BP scale is sometimes used for dates established by means other than radiocarbon dating, such as stratigraphy. This usage differs from the recommendation by van der Plicht & Hogg, followed by the Quaternary Science Reviews, both of which requested that publications should use the unit "a" (for "annum", Latin for "year") and reserve the term "BP" for radiocarbon estimations.
Some archaeologists use the lowercase letters bp, bc and ad as terminology for uncalibrated dates for these eras.
The Centre for Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen has proposed "b2k" as years before 2000 CE, based on the Greenland Ice Core Chronology 2005 (GICC05) time scale.
Some authors who use the YBP dating format also use YAP (years after present) to denote years after 1950.
SI prefix multipliers may be used to express larger periods of time, e.g. ka BP (thousand years BP), Ma BP (million years BP) and many others.
Radiocarbon dating was first used in 1949. Beginning in 1954, metrologists established 1950 as the origin year for the BP scale for use with radiocarbon dating, using a 1950-based reference sample of oxalic acid. According to scientist A.
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