Optically-stimulated luminescence profiling and dating of historic agricultural terraces in Catalonia (Spain)

摘要

Dating agricultural terraces is a notoriously difficult problem for archaeologists. The frequent occurrenceof residual material in terrace soils and the potential for post-depositional disturbance mean that conventionalartefactual and lab-based dating methods often provide unreliable dates. In this paper wepresent a new technique using luminescence field profiling coupled with OSL dating to produce complete(relative) sequences of dates for sedimentary stratigraphies associated with agricultural terracesand earthworks. The method is demonstrated through a series of case-studies in western Catalonia,Spain, in which we reconstruct the formation sequence of earthwork features from the Middle Agesthrough to the present day. OSL profiling at the time of archaeological survey and excavation permittedspatially and temporally resolved sediment ‘chronologies’ to be generated, and provides the means tointerpret the environmental and cultural archives contained in each. The case-studies presented hereshow that luminescence approaches are a valuable tool to reconstruct landscape histories.