On the 18-19th of October, the Cologne Luminescence Laboratory hosted an international workshop in Rock Surface Dating. Together with researchers from the luminescence laboratories in Aberystwyth, Innsbruck, Lausanne, and Risø we discussed OSL-dating of rock surfaces: the sampling of rocks, laboratory procedures and equipment, exposure and burial dating, erosion modelling, and luminescence characteristics and bleaching rates of different rock types.
Rock surface dating offers challenges for those who apply the method. Still, an enthusiastic international research community continuously provides methodological development. Rock surface dating is a fairly recent method, with new applications constantly being investigated. The F2 project in CRC806 aims to develop rock surface dating for archaeological applications. We currently work in the CLL with investigating luminescence characteristics in cobbles and boulders, collected from palaeolithic sites in Egypt and Spain.
Text: Lucas Ageby
Lucas Ageby is PhD candidate of the F2 project in CRC 806. He is working on the methodological development of luminescence dating of rock surfaces from Palaeolithic contexts.
Group picture of attendees outside the Rundbau, Institute of Geography, Cologne. Source: Cologne Luminescence Laboratory |
Slices of different lithology from the Murcia region, Spain. Source: Lucas Ageby |