28.01.2021 - 04:37
A  A

Luminescence Dating Laboratory - Projects

The Luminescence Group at MPI-EVA is involved in dating projects in the following regions:

  • Central and Eastern Europe including Russia
  • Southern Europe
  • Levant
  • Northern Africa
  • Southern Africa
  • Eastern Africa

Projects and involved persons:

1) Central and Eastern Europe

Gravel pit Rehbach, south of Leipzig (Saalian fluvial sand and gravel underlying the Saalian moraine)
Photo: Section Pietraszyn (Poland)

Middle- and Upper Pleistocene landscape evolution and early human dispersal in central Germany – chronological investigations on Saalian- and Elsterian sediment archives in the type region

  • Tobias Lauer & Marcel Weiß et al. (MPI EVA)
  • Thomas Weber (Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt) 
  • Stefan Wansa & Roland Wimmer (Landesamt für Geologie und Bergwesen Sachsen-Anhalt)
  • Jutta Winsemann & Jörg Lang (Geological Department, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany)
  • Wolfgang Bernhardt

Bilzingsleben, Germany

Ranis, Germany

Middle to Upper Paleolithic open-air sites in central and Eastern Europe
(Poland and Russia)

  • Tobias Lauer & Marcel Weiß et al. (MPI EVA)
  • Andrzej Wiśniewski (University of Worclav, Poland)
  • Aleksander K. Otcherednoy (Institute for the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia)

2) Southern Europe

Grotta dei Santi (Mousterian, Italy):

  • Tobias Lauer & Sahra Talamo et al. (MPI EVA)
  • Adriana Moroni et al. (Università di Siena, Italy)     

Abric de la Consagració rockshelter (Spain) - Middle Paleolithic up to Mesolithic

  • Tobias Lauer, Sahra Talamo & Dirk Hoffmann et al. (MPI EVA)
  • Manuel Vaquero (Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain)
  • Andrea Picin (Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena, Germany)  

Vanguard Cave (Gibraltar) – Middle to Upper Paleolithic

  • Nina Dörschner, Jean-Jacques Hublin (MPI EVA)
  • Kathryn Fitzsimmons (MPI for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany)
  • Clive Finlayson, Geraldine Finlayson (The Gibraltar Museum, Gibraltar)
  • Ruth Blasco (CENIEH, Spain)
  • Joaquín Rogríguez-Vidal (Universidad de Huelva, Spain)
  • Jordi Rosell (URV Tarragona, Spain)

3) Levant

Ain Difla (Jordan) - hominin adaptation during in the Middle and Late Pleistocene in the Southern Jordan Rift Valley

4) Northern Africa

The site of Rhafas and location of the cave sections.

Rhafas Cave (north-western Morocco)
– MSA to Neolithic

  • Nina Dörschner, Shannon McPherron, Jean-Jacques Hublin (MPI EVA)
  • Kathryn Fitzsimmons (MPI for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany)
  • Abdeljalil Bouzouggar (INSAP, Rabat, Morocco)
  • Teresa Steele (University of California Davis, USA)
  • Peter Ditchfield (University of Oxford, UK)
  • Sue McLaren (University of Leicester, UK)
  • Christoph Zielhofer (University of Leipzig, Germany)

Thomas Quarries (Atlantic Morocco) – Acheulian and MSA

  • Nina Dörschner, Jean-Jacques Hublin (MPI EVA)
  • Jean-Paul Raynal (Université Bordeaux, France)
  • Abderrahim Mohib (INSAP, Rabat, Morocco)

5) Southern Africa

Montagu Cave – South Africa (African Middle Stone Age and Acheulean)

6) Eastern Africa

Koobi Fora – Kenya

7) Methodology

Infrared-radiofluorescence dating – challenges and potential

Single grain quartz dating – OSL signal characteristics and dose recovery properties

  • Debra Colarossi & Nina Dörschner, (MPI EVA)
  • Kathryn Fitzsimmons (MPI for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany)
  • Marion Hernandez

Single grain feldspar dating - fundamental principles of post-infrared infrared stimulated luminescence

  • Debra Colarossi (MPI EVA)
  • Geoff Duller & Helen Roberts (Aberystwyth University)

Comparison of multiple grain and single grain luminescence dating of quartz and feldspar

  • Debra Colarossi (MPI EVA)
  • Geoff Duller & Helen Roberts (Aberystwyth University)