Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T09:52:54.292Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Can We Use Cosmogenic Isotopes to Date Stone Artifacts?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Susan Ivy-Ochs ,
Raphael Wüst ,
Peter W Kubik ,
Hansjürgen Müller-Beck  and
Christian Schlüchter
Susan Ivy-Ochs
Affiliation:
Particle Physics, ETH-Hönggerberg, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland. Email: [email protected].
Raphael Wüst
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z4, Canada
Peter W Kubik
Affiliation:
PSI c/o Particle Physics, ETH-Hönggerberg, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland
Hansjürgen Müller-Beck
Affiliation:
University of Tübingen, Sulgenauweg 38, CH-3007 Bern, Switzerland
Christian Schlüchter
Affiliation:
Geology, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Two chert artifacts from the region near Luxor, Egypt have yielded concentrations of cosmogenic 10Be that allow calculation of nominal exposure ages of 326,000 and 304,000 years. Both artifacts are flakes that were collected atop limestone benches of the Eocene Thebes Formation which form cliffs along the west side of the Nile. The site is at elevation 240 m and is about 15 km from the Nile. Tools associated with these artifacts can be attributed to the Late Acheulean or early Middle Paleolithic (the transition has been suggested to have been on the order of 250,000–300,000 years ago). This area, where abundant chert nodules have weathered out, has been a collection, extraction, and fabrication site since the Early Paleolithic (since at least 400,000 years ago). Surface exposure dating records all periods of exposure. That means these ages represent composite ages, comprised of exposures both before and after working. But what fraction of the 10Be concentration we have measured was acquired before the flakes were produced? Here we propose several approaches to deconvolute the different exposure periods and better approximate the real age of the artifacts. As there is no a priori reason that the two ages should agree with the typological ages of the artifacts, nor for the two independent ages to agree, these first results are especially exciting and intriguing.

Type
I. Our ‘Dry’ Environment: Above Sea Level
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 43 , Issue 2B: Proceedings of the 17th International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 2 of 3), Conference Editors: Israel Carmi, Elisabetta Boaretto , 2001 , pp. 759 - 764
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

Aitken, MJ. 1999. Archaeological dating using physical phenomena. Reports on Progress in Physics 62(9):1333–76.Google Scholar
Boaretto, E, Berkovits, D, Hass, M, Hui, SK, Kaufman, A, Paul, M, Weiner, S. 2000. Dating of prehistoric caves sediments and flints using 10Be and 26Al in quartz from Tabun Cave (Israel): Progress report. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B172:767–71.Google Scholar
Broecker, WS, Liu, T. 2001. Rock varnish: recorder of desert wetness? GSA Today 11(8):4–10.Google Scholar
Brown, ET, Bourlès, DL, Burchfiel, BC, Qidong, D, Jun, L, Molnar, P, Raisbeck, GM, Yiou, F. 1998. Estimation of slip rates in the southern Tien Shan using cosmogenic ray exposure dates of abandoned alluvial fans. Geological Society of America Bulletin 110(3):377–86.Google Scholar
Cerling, TE, Craig, H. 1994. Geomorphology and in-situ cosmogenic isotopes. Annual Reviews of Earth Planetary Science Letters 22:273–317.Google Scholar
Clark, JD. 1967. Atlas of African prehistory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Clark, JD. 1970. The prehisotry of Africa. South Hampton: Camelot Press.Google Scholar
Clark, JD. 1988. The Middle Stone Age of East Africa and the beginnings of regional identity. Journal of World Prehistory 2:235–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guichard, J, Guichard, G. 1968. Contribution to the study of the Early and Middle Paleolithic of Nubia. The Prehistory of Nubia. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, p. 148–93.Google Scholar
Ivy-Ochs, S, Kubik, PW, Masarik, J, Wieler, R, Bruno, LA, Schlüchter, C. 1998. Preliminary results on the use of pyroxene for 10Be surface exposure dating. Schweizerische mineralogische und petrographische Mitteilungen 78:375–82.Google Scholar
Kohl, CP, Nishiizumi, K. 1992. Chemical isolation of quartz for measurement of in-situ produced cosmogenic nuclides. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 56:3583–7.Google Scholar
Krinsley, D. 1998. Models of rock varnish formation constrained by high resolution transmission electron microscopy. Sedimentology 45(4):711–25.Google Scholar
Kubik, PW, Ivy-Ochs, S, Masarik, J, Frank, M, Schlöchter, C. 1998. 10Be and 26Al production rates deduced from an instantaneous event within the dendro-calibration curve, the landslide of Köfels, Ötz Valley, Austria. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 161:231–41.Google Scholar
Lal, D. 1991. Cosmic ray labeling of erosion surfaces: in situ nuclide production rates and erosion models. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 104:424–39.Google Scholar
Liu, T, Broecker, WS. 2000. How fast does varnish grow? Geology 28(2):183–6.Google Scholar
Masarik, J, Reedy, R. 1995. Terrestrial cosmogenic-nuclide production systematics calculated from numerical systematics. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 136:381–95.Google Scholar
McBrearty, S, Brooks, AS. 2000. The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution 39(5):453–563.Google Scholar
Mercier, N, Valladas, H, Valladas, G. 1995. Flint thermoluminescence dates from the CFR laboratory at GIF: contributions to the study of the chronology of the Middle Paleolithic. Quaternary Science Reviews 14:351–64.Google Scholar
Ochs, M, Ivy-Ochs, S. 1996. The chemical behavior of Be, Al, Fe, Ca, and Mg during AMS target preparation from terrestrial silicates modeled with chemical speciation calculations. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research B123:235–40.Google Scholar
Said, R. 1981. The geological evolution of the River Nile. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Said, R. 1993. The River Nile. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Schwarcz, HP, Rink, WJ. 2001. Skinflint dating. Quaternary Science Reviews 20:1047–50.Google Scholar
Stone, J. 2000. Air pressure and cosmogenic isotope production. Journal of Geophysical Research 105:23,753–59.Google Scholar
Valladas, H. 1992. Thermoluminescence dating of flint. Quaternary Science Reviews 11:1–5.Google Scholar
Vermeersch, PM. 1990. Palaeolithic chert exploitation in the limestone stretch of the Egyptian Nile Valley. The African Archaeological Review 8:77–102.Google Scholar
Vermeersch, PM. 2000. Paleolithic Living Sites in Upper and Middle Egypt. Leuven: Leuven University Press.Google Scholar
Vermeersch, PM. 2001. ‘Out of Africa’ From an Egyptian point of view. Quaternary International 75(1):103–12.Google Scholar
Wendorf, F, Schild, R, Close, AE. 1993. Summary and conclusions. Egypt during the last interglacial. New York: Plenum Press. p. 552–73.Google Scholar