Dose estimation and dating of pottery from Turkey

The luminescence method is a widely used technique for environmental dosimetry and dating archaeological, geological materials. In this study, equivalent dose (ED) and annual dose rate (AD) of an archaeological sample were measured. The age of the material was calculated by means of equivalent dose divided by the annual dose rate. The archaeological sample was taken from Antalya, Turkey. Samples were prepared by the fine grain technique and equivalent dose was found using multiple-aliquot-additive-dose (MAAD) and single aliquot regeneration (SAR) techniques. Also the short shine normalization-MAAD and long shine normalization-MAAD were applied and the results of the methods were compared with each other. The optimal preheat temperature was found to be 200 degrees C for 10 min. The annual doses of concentrations of the major radioactive isotopes were determined using a high-purity germanium detector and a low-level alpha counter. The age of the sample was found to be 510 +/- 40 years. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved