Archaeomagnetic dating of archaeological sites from Switzerland and Bulgaria

A new approach for geomagnetic archaeointensity research: insights on ancient metallurgy in the Southern Levant

“…Applications of such a dating technique provide excellent results (e.g. Jordanova et al, 2004;Kovacheva et al, 2004) and demonstrate the need for further reliable archaeomagnetic data in the Southern Levant (see also Le Goff et al, 2002).…”

The use of magnetometry and pole-dipole resistivity for locating Nabataean Hawar archeological site in the SW-Jordan

“…Iron oxides are commonly found in the clay deposits that were used for the construction of these architectural features. If materials that are rich in iron oxides are heated above their Curie temperature and then allowed to cool in the ambient earth's magnetic field, they have the potential to acquire a considerable magnetic anomalies through thermoremanent magnetization as a result of the conversion of iron oxides to a more magnetic state (reduction of hematite to magnetite) that takes place in an organic environment (e.g., Tite and Mullins 1971;Clark et al 1988;Bevan 1994;Gibson 1986;Crowther and Barker 1995;Batayneh et al 2001;Crew 2002;Herbich 2003;Hus et al 2003;Batayneh et al 2007;Kovacheva et al 2004;Weston 2004). Thus, a sufficient contrast in material properties between the target and surrounding materials (dry loess sand) can be expected.…”

Environmental influence on relative palaeointensity estimates from Holocene varved lake sediments in Finland

“…In order to look further back in time, different archaeological and geological proxies have been employed to collect data on the variations in palaeointensity. These include extrusive rocks and baked archaeological artefacts carrying thermoremanent magnetisation (TRM), which allows the reconstruction of palaeointensity in absolute terms (Teanby et al, 2002;Kovacheva et al, 2004;Donadini et al, 2007). Unfortunately, the occurrence of these materials is scattered in space and time, and their precise dating may be ambiguous (Clark et al, 1988).…”