A 300–600 ka ESR/U-series chronology of Acheulian sites in Western Europe

Abstract

For a long time, the establishment of the chronology of Acheulian settlements in Western Europe was restrained by the lack of reliable dating methods. During the Middle Pleistocene, the archaeological sites in this area are generally associated with fluvio-lacustrine and karstic contexts. The main geochronological methods (e.g. K/Ar, Ar/Ar, U-series, OSL and TL) could not be applied because of a lack of suitable material for dating, or the expected ages were beyond the upper limit of the dating technique. For several years, the combination of ESR and U-series data has allowed the direct dating of palaeontological remains from the entire Middle Pleistocene period. Combined ESR/U-series dating was applied to several major Acheulian sites in Spain, Italy and France. This paper presents the dating results, their implications for the chronology of the Acheulian in Western Europe as well as the methodological limits of the ESR/U-series dating method caused by the effect of weathering on the uranium uptake into the teeth.