A medieval settlement caught in the sand: Optical dating of sand-drifting at Pulle (N Belgium)

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• 作者：Cilia Derese ; Dimitri V ; enberghe ; Nele Eggermont ; Jan Bastiaens ; Rica Annaert ; Peter Van den haute
• 关键词：Drift sand ; Holocene ; Optically stimulated luminescence ; Quartz
• 刊名：Quaternary Geochronology
• 出版年：2010
• 出版时间：April-June 2010
• 年：2010
• 卷：5
• 期：2-3
• 页码：336-341
• 全文大小：769 K

文摘

Close to the village of Pulle (N Belgium), six trenches were opened for archaeological research. This resulted in the discovery of a dense spread of traces of human settlement. Only a relatively small number of artefacts was found, but these allowed attributing the traces to habitation during the Iron Age and Early Middle Ages. In one of the trenches, the level with the archaeological finds was covered by a drift-sand dune. The accumulation of these aeolian sediments presumably put an end to the human occupation. Hence, dating these sediments might provide essential information as to the chronology of the occupational history of the site.

Quartz-based optical dating was applied to constrain the timing of sand-drifting at Pulle. All samples showed satisfactory luminescence characteristics and yielded an internally consistent set of optical ages. Within analytical uncertainty, the age results show no increase with depth and do not allow differentiating between distinct phases of sand-drifting. An average age of 1.2 ± 0.1 ka was obtained, which is interpreted as an upper age limit for human occupation at the site. The results also illustrate (the limit on) the time resolution that can be achieved through conventional quartz single-aliquot optical dating techniques; considering these limitations, we conclude that the sand-drifting at Pulle occurred during a single, fairly short event in the Early Middle Ages.