Archaeomagnetic dating of a High Middle Age likely iron working site in Corroy-le-Grand (Belgium)
Discipline
Earth and related Environmental sciences
Subject
Archaeomagnetism
Archaeomagnetic dating
Belgium
Iron working site
Goethite
Rock magnetism
Audience
General Public
Scientific
Date
2008Publisher
IRM
KMI
RMI
Metadata
Show full item recordDescription
Archaeological burnt materials and structures provide unique records of direction and intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field in the past, elements that can be absolutely determined applying the archaeomagnetic method. At present, such records within Europe are irregular in both space and time. Presented here is the archaeomagnetic investigation of three kilns that were discovered during a preventive excavation of an archaeological site considered of High Middle Age in Corroy-le-Grand (Belgium) and that are assumed to be related to iron working activities. Archaeological context dating points to kiln operation between the second half of the 10th century until the 12th century AD. As the site is not far from Paris, declination and inclination of the characteristic remanent magnetisation of the kilns were compared with the standard directional secular variation curve for France in order to propose archaeomagnetic dates for the cessation of kiln operation by using probability densities [Lanos, Ph.; 2004. Bayesian inference of calibration curves, application to archaeomagnetism. In: Buck, C.E.; Millard, A.R. (Eds.), Tools for Constructing Chronologies: Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries. Lecture Notes in Statistics. Springer Verlag, London, pp. 43–82; Lanos, Ph.; Le Goff, M.; Kovacheva, M.; Schnepp, E.; 2005. Hierarchical modelling of archaeomagnetic data and curve estimation by moving average technique. Geophysical Journal International 160 (2), 440–476]. This confirms the presumed archaeological age and resulted in more precise time constraints for the last kiln operation. Rock magnetic techniques, proposed by Spassov and Hus [Spassov, S.; Hus, J.; 2006. Estimating baking temperatures in a Roman pottery kiln by rock magnetic properties: implications of thermochemical alteration for archaeointensity determinations. Geophysical Journal International 167, 592–604], were applied to examine the suitability of the burnt materials from the kilns for archaeointensity determinations and to increase the success rate of the Thellier–Thellier double heating technique. An average value for the field intensity of 69.4 ± 2.5 μT was estimated from 10 specimens from a single kiln, which corresponds reasonably well with published data for Western Europe.
Citation
Spassov, S.; , Hus, J.; Geeraerts, R.; Heller, F. (2008). Archaeomagnetic dating of a High Middle Age likely iron working site in Corroy-le-Grand (Belgium). , Issue Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 33, 544-556, IRM,Identifiers
Type
Article
Peer-Review
Not pertinent
Language
eng