Rock and sediment luminescence dating of an ancient circular stone-walled enclosure at Sønnebøe, northern Scania, Sweden

Autor: W.K. Thompson, D. Arvidsson, A.S. Murray, A. Blidberg, V. Hansen
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Thompson, W K, Arvidsson, D, Murray, A S, Blidberg, A & Hansen, V 2022, ' Rock and sediment luminescence dating of an ancient circular stone-walled enclosure at Sønnebøe, northern Scania, Sweden ', Quaternary Geochronology, vol. 72, 101340 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2022.101340
DOI: 10.1016/j.quageo.2022.101340
Popis: Dating agricultural artefacts such as field walls and clearance cairns using radiocarbon can be challenging, especially since the association with datable material may be poor. Rock surface burial dating using luminescence offers an alternative. Here we report on the luminescence dating of a medieval circular stone-walled enclosure at Sønnebøe, northern Scania, Sweden, using both buried rocks and sediments. Luminescence burial profiles from IRSL signals measured at 50 °C (IR50) indicated significant prior light exposure in 7 of the 8 samples tested (5 granite, 2 felsic gneiss), in some cases multiple exposure burial cycles were indicated. These rock surfaces had apparently been exposed for sufficient time to allow accurate IRSL ages for the most recent burial event. In contrasts, no useful post-IR IRSL profiles were obtained indicating that this signal was not sufficiently reset to allow accurate determination of the burial dose on any of these rocks. IR50 fading corrections (typically ∼50%) were derived by comparing field saturation with that induced in the laboratory. Quartz extracted from sediments surrounding the rocks gave an average measured to given dose ratio of 1.03 ± 0.01 (n = 90), and these sediment samples were then dated using multigrain aliquots; the corresponding feldspar dose recovery ratio obtained using rock samples was 0.98 ± 0.05 (n = 28). A total of 15 ages were derived; 8 quartz OSL ages from the disturbed coarse grained sediments surrounding the structure, and 7 fading corrected IR50 ages from the surfaces of rocks (2–3 mm chips, ∼1 mm thick) used in the construction of the structure itself. The exposure events preserved by the ring enclosure stones unequivocally show wall building taking place at the site between 800 and 300 years ago.
Databáze: OpenAIRE