CalPal Info

CalPal is developed to support chronological studies in the glacial periods, back to the very limits of the radiocarbon method at ca. 50 ka BP.
CalPal is a program package written in Fortran 95 (Lahey LF95 v5.7 compiler) with user interface and graphic routines based on Winteracter 7.1. The integrated radiocarbon database management makes use of F90SQL.
CalPal allows you to calibrate your 14C-data by four different routines, all of which are made to produce high-quality vector-graphs. The graphs can be viewed on the screen and/or sent to any WIN-printer. The graphs may be converted and exported as HP-GL, PS, EPS, BMP, PCX, PNG, CGM, WMF, DXF, and SVG, as well as via clipboard. Numeric radiocarbon database import and export is possible with a user-friendly SQL-dialog (which steers the ODBC interface), and also through the clipboard. Radiocarbon Data Entry is (optionally) in fixed ASCII-format, using a gridded spreadsheet, or via Excel-Import.
Numeric resolution is 1 year on both time scales (14C and calendric). The four routines are designed to cover the following analytical methods and procedures:

  • Conventional 14C-Histograms (summed 14C-probabilities 1-1000 dates)
  • Calibrated histograms (idem, for calibrated data)
  • Dendrochronological Wiggle Matching
  • Monte Carlo Wiggle Matching for high-precision studies
  • Mulitple Archeological Group Calibration
  • Graphic representation of selected climate proxies

The dialogs and menus are highly integrated, as example, after adjusting the required climate proxy(s), we next import the requested (SQL-selected) radiocarbon data from an archaeological 14C-database, then run one of the four radiocarbon calibration programs (e.g. CalClimate), to quickly produce a high-quality (e.g. Postscript) radiocarbon calibration graph showing the probability of the calibrated radiocarbon data under study, in context with the requested climatic information.

Climate ComposerCalPal is designed, in parts, for explorative research. Please note that the procedures implemented in CalPal may not in all cases be identical to the procedures offically recommended by the 14C-community. For such purposes, you may prefer to use a different radiocarbon calibration program.

An additional dialog integrated in CalPal will produce a vector-map of the sites as selected from the radiocarbon database, using the scienceware PanMap.