Studies On the Loess Deposits of the Kashmir Valley and 14C Dating

Abstract

The loessic deposits along with their palaeosols of the Kashmir Valley have been ¹⁴C dated using both organic and carbonate fractions. The ¹⁴C dates on both the fractions show good concordance. The ¹⁴C dates indicate that the last deglaciation in Kashmir (34° N) already started CA 18,000 ± 1000 BP at CA 1600m and CA 15,000 BP at CA 3000m altitude and thus support the recent global evidence of deglaciation having started several millennia before the Holocene.