The Acheulean site of Porto Maior (Galicia, Spain): an example of successful combined ESR and luminescence dating applications

Abstract

The Acheulean site of Porto Maior (Galicia, Spain) has delivered an exceptional extensive accumulation of large cutting tools (LCTs) showing affinities with Lower Palaeolithic assemblages from Africa. The chronology of the site has been established by the combination of two dating methods independently applied to the different sedimentary units of the sequence. Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) dating of optically bleached quartz grains was carried out at CENIEH (Spain) following the Multiple Centre approach. Both Aluminium and Titanium centres were measured. Luminescence dating was conducted at the University of Adelaide's Prescott Environmental Luminescence Laboratory (Australia). Post infrared (IR) IR stimulated luminescence (pIR-IR) dating of coarse K-rich feldspar grains was applied to all samples, while single-grain optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) of quartz grains was applied to one sample located at the top of the sequence. A total of 6 ESR and 4 luminescence dating sediment samples were independently collected from deposits bracketing the main LCT accumulation and processed. Age results constrain the chronology of the deposits to between ca. 300 ka and ca. 20 ka. A detailed comparison of the different age results and associated data obtained will be presented and the main sources of uncertainty affecting each method will be discussed.