Archaeomagnetic dating: Fundamentals, achievements and limitations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17735/cyg.v36i3-4.94093Keywords:
Earth's magnetic field, secular variation, thermoremanence, combustion structure, iron oxidesAbstract
Archaeomagnetism is a dating technique that allows dating the last heating of certain burnt archaeological and geological materials. The study of the thermoremanence recorded in some materials such as furnaces, hearths and volcanic rocks, allows us to reconstruct the variations in direction and/or intensity of the Earth's magnetic field over time through the development of regional curves and geomagnetic field models. These curves and models are powerful dating tools and most of them, including those developed for the Iberian Peninsula, span the last 3-4 millennia. Currently, it is possible to date the last use (heating) and potential abandonment of an archaeological combustion structure from the last 4,000 years with a temporal uncertainty that can vary, depending on factors, between ± 50 years and a few centuries. Here we report a synthesis of the technique´s fundamentals, the materials of interest and how to approach their sampling. The chronological range of application of the method and the factors determining its temporal precision are also discussed. Finally, a dating case of a peninsular prehistoric combustion structure is shown describing the steps followed to obtain an archaeomagnetic dating. The improvement and chronological extension of the technique notably depends on the interdisciplinary collaboration between geophysicists and archaeologists.
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