First attempt of ESR dating of feldspars from Galería site (Atapuerca, Spain)

Abstract

Various radiation defects in feldspars were reported in the 70’s [1, 2] but only in the mid 80’s and 90’s feldspars were reportedly used in Electron Spin Resonance Dating (ESR) [3, 4]. Since then, very few studies have been published on this ESR application and the potential of using feldspars as useful dosimeters hold on standby. In order to review this issue we have tested the ESR dating method on feldspar grains ex-tracted from five samples from the Trinchera Galería site in Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain). The Aluminium and Titanium centres were measured at low temperature (90 K) following the addi-tive dose protocol for estimating equivalent doses (DE). Dose rates were calculated from a combination of in situ and laboratory measurements. These samples had already been dated by Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) on quartz grains [5]. The appropriateness of the protocol used in this work and the robustness of the new feldspar ESR ages are evaluated by comparison with both, the previously acquired quartz OSL ages and new feldspar OSL ages obtained on the same samples.