LOESSFEST'09 | Aug. 31st – Sept. 3rd, 2009 |Novi Sad-Serbia
Luminescence Dating of the Krems-Wachtberg (Austria) Palaeolithic Burial Site and Adjacent Loess Layers
Fuchs, M.1, Reddersen, B.1, Richter, D.2, Zöller, L.1
1Geography Department, University of Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany
2MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Human Evolution, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
The Paleolithic burial site of Krems-Wachtberg / Austria is famous for its Lower Gravettian infant burials, excavated in 2005 and 2006. To establish a reliable chronostratigraphy, luminescence dating techniques were applied and compared with results from rock magnetic records and radiocarbon ages.
For OSL dating, 6 samples from the Krems-Wachtberg site were taken in direct vicinity above and below the cultural layer. The equivalent dose (De) was determined using coarse (90-200μm) and fine (4-11 μm) grain extracts from the quartz fraction, avoiding the problem of anomalous fading, which is often reported from feldspars. Both fractions show adequate luminescence characteristics, including positive dose recovery and recycling ratio tests. A high De scatter derived from the coarse grain fraction show again the problem of coarse grain quartz as a natural dosimeter for dating loess. The reasons for that are still unclear. However, results for the fine grain quartz extracts are very promising and are in accordance with the radiocarbon dated cultural layer AH4. In addition, the correctness of the OSL ages is supported by the age model based on rock magnetic records. The results will be discussed and also compared to the second investigated site in Willendorf, where also coarse and fine grain quartz separates were used for OSL age determination.
For TL dating brick-red heated loess from an oven excavated in the cultural layer was sampled. A part of the 4-11μm polymineral fine grain fraction was extracted for standard TL dating using the MAAD protocol and blue (410 nm) B-TL emissions. The other part of this fraction was etched in H2SiF6 to extract pure fine-grained quartz only for measuring orange-red (580 nm) R-TL emissions. De determination of this fraction was achieved by both, MAAD and simplified SAR protocols. Taking the mean a-value for fine-grained quartz as found for OSL also for the R-TL, apparent TL ages agree within errors and also with the OSL ages, the calibrated radiocarbon ages (CALPAL-Hulu) and the age constraints derived from paleo- and rock magnetic records. The result from the MAAD B-TL dating also yields evidence that anomalous fading did not significantly affect the obtained age or was effectively removed by our laboratory procedure, respectively.