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Luminescence Dating of Archaeological Sediments

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Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods

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Definition

“Archaeological sediments” can be defined in two ways. First, it can refer to any sediment at archaeological sites even if the depositional agent is entirely geologic. A site is any locus where human activity, as identified by remains of that activity (artifacts), took place. The timing of that activity interests archaeologists. Dating sediments which contain or bracket artifacts is a proxy for dating the activity itself. Luminescence is a powerful tool for this because the event addressed is the deposition itself, assuming sunlight was sufficient to reset the signal during deposition or, if not fully, a well-bleached portion can be isolated. But luminescence is not dating the activity (Richter et al. 2009). Artifacts can be redeposited by geologic forces making their current location not where the activity occurred. To avoid misleading information, bridging arguments are required to link the event dated (last exposure to sunlight) to the activity of interest.

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  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    James Feathers

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  1. James Feathers
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  1. School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    W. Jack Rink

  2. Department of Medical Physics and Applied Radiation Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    Jeroen Thompson

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Feathers, J. (2013). Luminescence Dating of Archaeological Sediments. In: Rink, W., Thompson, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Scientific Dating Methods. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_55-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_55-2

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  1. Latest

    Luminescence Dating of Archaeological Sediments
    Published:
    30 January 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_55-2

  2. Original

    Luminescence Dating of Archaeological Sediments
    Published:
    05 October 2013

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6326-5_55-1

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