Dating a Settlement Pattern by Thermoluminescence: The Burnt Mounds of Orkney

Huxtable, J.; Aitken, M. J.; Hedges, John W.; Renfrew, A. C.

doi:10.1111/j.1475-4754.1976.tb00140.x

Cited by 16 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Fleming (1979) produced a summary of all TL ages on archaeological material published up until 1979, including both ceramic and non‐ceramic materials, and a review of TL ages on non‐pottery materials appeared in the following year (Wintle 1980). Among the non‐ceramic materials that have been investigated are burnt quartz (Wintle and Oakley 1972), heated stones (Huxtable et al . 1976) and burnt flints (Göksu and Fremlin 1972).…”

Section: The First 22 Years 1957–1979mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fifty Years of Luminescence Dating*

Wintle

2008

Archaeometry

144

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Luminescence techniques for dating both heated materials (e.g., pottery and burnt stone) and sediments have gone through three phases in the past 50 years. The first 22 years, from 1957 to 1979, were devoted to thermoluminescence (TL) techniques applied to heated material. In the next six years, from 1979 to 1985, it was found that TL dating could be applied to sediments. However, the TL signals of both quartz and feldspar grains observed for modern sediments were small, but were not zero, thus making them useful only for older sediments. A new luminescence signal that was totally zeroed by exposure to sunlight for a relatively short period of time, a few hours or less, was found; this led to the development of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating techniques in 1985. Further developments have continued to the present day. Within the past 22 years, 1999 was also a year with major developments. A reliable procedure for single aliquots of quartz that have a rapidly bleached ('fast') OSL component was formalized and an instrument that allowed rapid measurement of equivalent doses for single grains was constructed. These developments have led to OSL becoming a major dating tool in Quaternary geology, at least for the past 100 000 years, and in archaeology, particularly as related to the dispersal of modern humans.

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Section: The First 22 Years 1957–1979mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Burnt stones were crushed in order to obtain a representative grain size for TL measurement. This approach was applied to stones from a number of stone mounds found on Orkney (Huxtable et al . 1976).…”

Section: The First 22 Years 1957–1979mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fifty Years of Luminescence Dating*

Wintle

2008

Archaeometry

144

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“…It might be hoped that temperatures sufficiently high to have fused basalt rubble might thereby have set a physical clock; perhaps one to be read by the thermoluminescence technique. Research towards a similar end is already in progress on the heat-affected rock of burnt mounds (Huxtable, Hedges, Renfrew and Aitken 1976). The results so far reported are scarcely encouraging for our purpose.…”

Section: The Radiocarbon Datesmentioning

confidence: 81%

A multi-disciplinary chronology for Alt Clut, Castle Roack, Dumbarton

Alcock¹

1978

PSAS

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Small scale excavations at this early British stronghold were performed as part of a long term research programme on early historic fortifications in Scotland (here listed). Historical, archaeological and 14C evidence are combined to produce a historical account, identify the fortification implied by Bede in 731, and attribute its destruction to the Vikings Olafr and Ivarr the Boneless in 870. The 14C dates are best read as implying construction after 600, possibly after 650. Au(adp)

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“…In many pre-pottery cultures burnt stones were used for cooking (pot-boilers) and such sites are characterized by mounds of burnt stones. Good examples of such mounds occur in the Orkney islands and TL dates have been obtained for about 40 stones from 7 sites (Huxtable et al 1976) as well as for 3 pieces of pottery from one of the sites. The stones were of Orcadian sandstone; they were found to contain insufficient quartz for application of the quartz inclusion technique and dates were obtained using the fme grain technique.…”

Section: B U R N T Stonesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermoluminescence Dating: A Review of Recent Applications to Non‐pottery Materials

Wintle

1980

Archaeometry

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The past decade has seen an expansion of the thermoluminescence (TL) dating technique. Prior to 1970 most effort was spent on developing an absolute dating technique for pottery from archaeological sites; this culminated in the so-called fine grain (Zimmerman 1971), quartz inclusion (Fleming 1970) and feldspar inclusion (Mejdahl 1972) techniques. Since 1970 much of the TL research has been involved with investigating some of the problems encountered in subsequent pottery studies. These problems have been summarized in reviews by Aitken (1974, 1977) and Seeley (1975). This research has given us a wealth of information about the TL properties of a variety of naturally occurring minerals which has enabled us to consider dating non-pottery samples of both archaeological and geological interest. In this paper these developments and their applications are reviewed to demonstrate the wider potential of the TL dating technique.

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Dating a Settlement Pattern by Thermoluminescence: The Burnt Mounds of Orkney

Cited by 16 publications

References 9 publications

Fifty Years of Luminescence Dating*

Fifty Years of Luminescence Dating*

A multi-disciplinary chronology for Alt Clut, Castle Roack, Dumbarton

Thermoluminescence Dating: A Review of Recent Applications to Non‐pottery Materials

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