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Advantages and limitations of thermoluminescence dating of heated flint from Paleolithic sites
Author(s) -
Richter Daniel
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
geoarchaeology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.696
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1520-6548
pISSN - 0883-6353
DOI - 10.1002/gea.20180
Subject(s) - thermoluminescence , thermoluminescence dating , dose rate , radiometric dating , reliability (semiconductor) , archaeology , geology , mineralogy , geography , geochemistry , materials science , chemistry , physics , radiochemistry , thermodynamics , power (physics) , optoelectronics , luminescence
Thermoluminescence (TL) dating is now widely used in the age determination of Paleolithic sites. Although the basic principle of TL‐dating is simple, the underlying assumptions are not trivial. One major source of error is the external dose rate, which contributes to a varying degree to the denominator of the age formula and thus has a varying influence on the dating result. The intention of this paper is to enable the user to evaluate TL age determinations of heated flint. The parameters used for age determination and some of their relationships are discussed. It is shown that the reliability of TL results of heated flint depends on the proportion of the various dose‐rate parameters and that these are important for the evaluation of ages. The limitations of the method as well as the advantages are discussed. TL‐dating results for two Near Eastern Paleolithic sites (Rosh Ein Mor and Jerf al‐Ajla) are discussed as examples. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.