Viaduct

WHAT IS IT FOR

dating

morphology

technology

origin

composition

alteration

APPLICABLE MATERIALS

Ceramic

Mortar

Stone

Ceramic Building Materials (CBM), Mortar & Plaster, Stone
The technique may be applied to Ceramic building materials (CBM), i.e. bricks, tiles, to mortars and, in some cases, to stones (few examples for this application, which is very difficult to set up notably to retrieve the minerals).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

TL signals (intensity vs stimulation temperature)

Some minerals such as quartz or feldspars, typically found in ceramic materials, stone or mortars absorb and store a radiation dose* originating from the effects of the surrounding radioactivity. When bricks or tiles are fired during their manufacturing or when sand is exposed to the sun before its addition to lime, the radiation dose of geological origin is removed. From this moment, considered as the resetting of the brick or mortar, the chronometer mechanism starts: the grains

increasingly accumulate a new radiation dose again, known as ‘paleodose’.

The dating method consists in measuring the archaeological dose in the lab by heating (“thermo-“, TL) or lighting (“optically stimulated”, OSL) the crystals*. This leads to the emission of photons (“luminescence”), the intensity of which is proportional to the Paleodose. The environmental contribution to the annual dose is measured on site and the contribution from the sample itself in the lab (Bailiff , 2007).

TL signals (intensity vs stimulation temperature)

Metrics

accuracy
time
cost

TIPS

Make sure that reused material or material affected by fires is not included in the samples
Interesting for traditional brick building areas or early periods, when no chronological information can be obtained from the style or written sources (ex: for vernacular architecture, for early medieval architecture where original wood is rarely present and when there is no charcoal in the mortar)

HOW DOES IT WORK?

References

Aitken, M. J., 1985. Thermoluminescence Dating. London: Academic Press.

Aitken, M. J., 1998. An Introduction to Optical Dating. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bailiff , I.K., 2015. Luminescence Dating, Pottery and Bricks. In: W.J. Rink and J.W. Thompson, eds. 2015. The Encyclopedia of Scientifi c Dating Methods. the Springer Reference Series Rink.

Bailiff , I. K., 2007. Methodological developments in the luminescence dating of brick from English late-medieval and post-medieval buildings. Archaeometry, 49, pp. 827–851.

Bailiff , I. K., Blain, S., Graves, C. P., Gurling, T., Semple, S., 2010. Uses and recycling of brick in medieval English buildings: insights from the application of luminescence dating and new avenues for further research. The Archaeological Journal, 167, pp. 165-196.

Blain, S., Guibert, P., Bouvier, A., Vieillevigne, E., Bechtel, F., Sapin, C., Baylé, M., 2007. TL dating applied to building archaeology: The case of the medieval church Notre-Dame-Sous-Terre (Mont- Saint-Michel, France). Radiation Measurements, 42, pp. 1483–1491.

Blain, S., Lanos, Ph., Bailiff , I., Guibert, P., Sapin, Ch., 2014. Early medieval brickmaking: a cross-Channel perspective based on recent luminescence and archaeomagnetic dating results. In: T.Ratilainen, R. Bernotas, Ch. Herrmann, ed. 2015. Fresh Approaches to the Brick Production and Use in the Middle Ages, Proceedings of the session ‘Utilization of Brick in the medieval period – Production, Construction, Destruction’ Held at the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) Meeting 29 August – 1 September 2012 in Helsinki, Finland, BAR International Series 2611. Oxford: Archaeopress, pp. 1-10.

Duller, G. A. T., 2008. Luminescence dating: guidelines on using luminescence dating in archaeology. Swindon, English Heritage.

Feathers, J.K., 2003. Use of luminescence dating in archaeology. Measurement Science and Technology, 14, pp.1493 -1509. Liritzis I., Singhvi A. K., Feathers J. K., Wagner G.A., Kadereit A., Zacharias N., Li S-H., 2013. Luminescence Dating in Archaeology, Anthropology, and Geoarchaeology. An Overview. Springer Briefs in Earth System Sciences.

Hughes, M.J., 2009. ICP-AES analysis of ceramic building material. In: P. Drury and R.W. Simpson, 2009: Hill Hall: A Singular House Devised by a Tudor Intellectual. London: Society of Antiquaries of London, pp. 366–379.

Preusser, F., Degering, D., Fuchs, M., Hilgers, A., Kadereit, A., Klasen, N., Krbetschek, M., Richter, D., Spencer, J.Q.G., 2008. Luminescence dating: basics, methods and applications. Eiszeitalter und Gegenwart: Quaternary Science Journal, 57, pp. 95–149.

Mook, W.G., Waterbolk, H.T., 1985. Radiocarbon Dating, Handbooks for Archaeologists: No. 3, Strasbourg: European Science Foundation.

Blain, S., Hall, Ch., 2016. Direct dating methods. In: A. Hunt A. ed. 2016. The Oxford Handbook of Archaeological Ceramic Analysis. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

TL/OSL