Recent Applications of Luminescence Dating in Archaeology

DOCUMENT Citation Only Fernando Ozorio De Almeida. Brenda Bowser. Sachiko Sakai.

This study provides an example of the potential for optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating to resolve chronological questions that cannot be adequately addressed using conventional radiocarbon dating alone. We have applied this method to ceramics from the Teotônio site, located beside the Teotônio waterfall on the upper Madeira River in southwestern Amazonia. This site can be understood as a persistent place, with several occupations ranging from at least 6000 BP to recent times, when...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sachiko Sakai. Hector Neff.

Artifact assemblages from the Arizona Strip and adjacent area are characterized by widely distributed ceramics tempered with olivine, a volcanic mineral. Sources of olivine lie in the vicinity of Mt. Trumbull and Tuweep, near the northwestern part of the Grand Canyon. The olivine-tempered ceramics were distributed mostly westward from Mt. Trumbull, up to 100 km to the lowland Virgin area in southern Nevada between A.D. 200 and 1350. Ultimately, the goal of this study is to understand why ceramic...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Colleen Hanratty.

Twenty-four years of investigations conducted by the Maya Research Program at numerous Maya archaeological sites in northwestern Belize offers special opportunities for the investigation of the social and political dynamics at the end of the Classic period in this region. In this paper, we discuss the Late Classic time period, including rapidly increasing populations, political reorganization, declining soil quality, and expansion of agricultural systems. We discuss the specific responses that...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Karen Harry. Sachiko Sakai.

The Virgin Branch ceramic typology is poorly defined. Definitions and chronologies of most types were established more than half a century ago, when little work had been conducted in the region. Further, because of an absence of tree-ring dates, the placement of most types has relied on cross-dating with Kayenta pottery styles. These situations can create problems when using ceramics to date archaeological contexts, as illustrated by recent excavations at the Pete’s Pocket site. This site,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Cook. Sachiko Sakai.

Establishing temporally-diagnostic artifacts has long been a tradition in American archaeology. One such case is that of using the Madisonville-type pottery, one of the most agreed upon temporal markers in the Fort Ancient region of the Middle Ohio Valley. This pottery type is often used as the defining characteristic separating A.D. 1400-1650 Fort Ancient sites from those dating to the earlier A.D. 1000-1400 period. While this temporal marker has been demonstrated in strict terms through...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Hector Neff. Sachiko Sakai. Brendan Culleton. Douglas Kennett.

Plumbate, the most widely distributed pottery of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, has been sourced to the Pacific coastal region of Soconusco, near the present international border between Mexico and Guatemala. In recent fieldwork, several Plumbate production contexts were excavated. In addition to large volumes of Plumbate and Plumbate wasters, these deposits contain large amounts of wood ash and solid ceramic cylinders of various sizes, from finger-size up to rolling-pin size. Complicating...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christina Bolte. Jay D. Franklin. Nathan K. Shreve. S.D. Dean.

We have conducted shoreline surveys of archaeological sites on major streams in upper East Tennessee for several years. In 2011, we added luminescence dating to this work. We discuss how luminescence dating has added robust chronological resolution to our work and how it has informed our hypothesis-building efforts. We address the protohistory of the region and the identification of early Cherokee towns here. Before adding luminescence dating as an integral facet of our work, we believed these...

DOCUMENT Citation Only James Feathers. Astolfo Araujo.

The Alice Boer site, in the Rio Claro region of São Paulo state, Brazil, gained some renown in the 1970s as a possible pre-Clovis site. It was excavated in the 1960s by Maria Beltrão and produced a questionable radiocarbon date of 14.2 ± 1.2 BP (uncalibrated) drawn from a very small (for conventional dating) charcoal piece near the bottom of an ant-disturbed cultural layer. A TL date on burned chert of 11 kya was also produced. The presence of artifacts in the lower layers and the integrity of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Janine Gasco.

In the Soconusco region of Chiapas, Mexico, we are still struggling with refining the Postclassic ceramic chronology. At the site of Gonzálo Hernández, the evidence suggests that the principal occupation of the site was during the Late Postclassic period (ca. 1300-1520CE), but a small percentage of sherds date to earlier periods. In an effort to approach the local ceramic chronology from a new perspective, a small sample of sherds were dated using luminescence dating. The results have clarified...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eloise Gadus.

Data recovery investigations at site 22CH698, located in Choctaw County, Mississippi, employed luminescence dating of ceramic vessel sherds to complement radiocarbon dates and establish cultural stratigraphy within the site’s thick Holocene alluvium. The dating results, along with diagnostic artifacts, indicate that the site components, representing some 2,000 years of occupation, are mixed. Yet the luminescence dates underscore a strong Miller I through Miller III phase occupation (ca. 100 B.C....