Thermoluminescent dating of burned flint tools

Dating of burned flint like dating bones or teeth has the advantages of dealing directly with archaeological material. But unlike organic materials, the flints additionaly have the advantage of being imperishable. Age determination of burned flints by thermoluminescence (TL) provides a feasible and potentially inexpensive means to date archaeological materials older than the limits of radiocarbon and younger than the mininum range of Potasium-Argon methods. Age determination of pottery which has been used with succes for a long time AITKEN et. al (1967), MEJDAHL (1968) measures the date of fiering of the pottery. Similarly, dating of burned flints by TL gives the date of last pyrolization. But unlike pottery it was found that to date powdered samples were impossible to date for two main reasons. One, thermoluminescence produced due to the grinding of samples, which is known as tribo-thermoluminescence; and two, regeneration thermoluminescence produced in the absence of radioactivity even in the dark which seems to be accelated by the presence of moisture, GOKSU, FREMLIN (1972).