Confiability test of thermoluminesce (TL) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) methods

Abstract

The knowledge of the age of a sample is of great importance for researchers in archeology and geology, among other sciences. There are several dating methods for archaeological and geological materials. To begin with there is the well known radiocarbon and radioactivity methods,based on the decay of the C-14 isotope or other isotopes with appropriate half-life. Of increasing importance one finds those based on the energy deposition in solids. Thermoluminescence (TL) or optically stimulated and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) are solid state process dependent on energy deposited by incident ionizing radiation in solids. Some local archaeologists questioned the trustfulness of TL and OSL methods for dating potteries. In the present work three large potsherds, each one divided into two parts were dated at two of the most active dating laboratory to crosscheck their dating results. A reasonably good agreement between the results was obtained indicating that the methods when correctly applied are trustable.