One method works with the inclination of the earth's

magnetic field which wanders over time. When ceramics

is heated above the Curie temperature, the magnetic

field encased in the pottery vanishes but the

elementary magnets align again when the temperature

sinks. Therefore the exact location and aligment

of the ceramics must be recorded by archeologists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoremanent_magnetization

Another method works with determining the

volume of the pottery which changes while

water is being reintegrated into the crystal

structure. Thermoluminescence is also mentioned:

http://www.nature.com/news/1998/030331/full/news030331-5.html

A new method is called rehydroxylation dating.

It works by weighing the amount of OH groups

which has been rebuilt into the clay crystals.

http://phys.org/news/2011-01-date-ceramics.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehydroxylation_dating

Other:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-11/nofs-ndt111502.php

Regards,

Joachim

As far as I am aware, the most common method for pottery dating would be thermoluminescence - although it usually gives out large time-intervals, so the utility of such method would depend on the period you're analysing and the resolution you desire to obtain on your dates.

All best,

Tiago

Hi

About thermoluminescence pottery dating from neolithic times in Poland see:

"Światowit" 1994, vol. 39, pp. 157-181

http://www.archeo.uw.edu.pl/swarch/Swiatowit-r1994-t39-s157-181.pdf

Best Regards

Maciej Wawrzczak

For direct dating of pottery, I would also recommend thermoluminescence, preferably combined with C14 method of associated organic material. As for trace element analysis of pottery, I would prefer X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy, since its is non-destructive and more practical in both sample preparation and implementation.

Rashid, THermoluminescence was used in our Qumran project and has been published in  Khirbet Qumran et 'Ain Feshkha  (Humbert and Gunneweg eds) 2003 by K.L. Rasmussen on pp. 101-104 [Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Goettingen]

 ISBN 3-525-53973-8.

Regarding the so-called "rehydroxylation dating" that was launched in Manchester, I am very skeptic, the more so because after some writing here and there they closed their website with info regarding the so-called method. To say it bluntly, I doubt if it ever worked. I suggested them to collaborate with pottery found in Qumran and beyond and they wrote me back that the method was still to be developed.

So, TL works but the standard deviations of the obtained time period is large. We only got a clear answer for whether something was ancient and what belonged to recent  ceramic, which was enough for my goal, but that was that..

Difficult to say. The best is use combination of several methods. First of all, I would date sherds indirectly by archaeological layer, where they have been found (AMS of macroremains, preferably seeds of annual plants). Second step should be to find some organic residuum directly connected with any sherd, for example rest of straw temper. And, finally, I would use rehydroxylation method, but this method is still under development. 

Dear Ali, it is not that simple as you suggest. The sherd may not see light. Indeed so.

So, in a photographic dark room you may remove with a silicon grinding wheel the first layer of the sherd where you want take the sample. Then after removing at least two mm, you can start with drilling the sample. After that the ceramic dust has to be placed in a vile that cannot allow light to enter and then you remove it from the darkroom.

At the same time, a similar sample is taken form the soil that surrounds the sherd where it was found. The reason for this is that TL is depending on comparing the chemical elements from both the sherd and the soil for calculating the abundances for U, K and Th. Since we know the decay of each of these radioactive elements, the radiation due to alpha, beta and gamma rays--absorbed from the soil and sunlight--the years can be calculated. 

I suggest to read the TL account in the journal of Archaeometry when Aitken was the head of the lab in Oxford.

Hi,

I work on dating of pottery with luminescence and C14. C14 only makes sense when you can see the organic compounds, like straw. Otherwise you do not know what you are dating.

With luminescencen (TL in this case) you date the last heating (so: if re-heated....!). But you only get reliable dates with TL if you provde the fresh pottery without being washed or dried together with the surrounding sediment. Otherwise you will only get a rough estimate of your age with error bars larger than the age of the sample.

You can expose the pottery to light as we usually remove the outer part in the lab.

Did that help a bit?

Direct dating of pottery is too expensive and not precise enough. The best

method is still traditional typological dating, which is rapid (immediate). It requires 'calibration' by radiocarbon dating of the surrounding site. If combined with statistical procedures (pottery seriation) then dating precision in the order of decades is achievable. Otherwise a few hundred years. I have worked on archaeological chronology for some time now and have never (yet) used direct pottery dates (TL etc) 

On RHX dating of pottery, see, most recently, Clelland, S.-J., Wilson, M. A., Carter, M. A. & Batt, C. M. (2015). RHX Dating: measurement of the Activation Energy of Rehydroxylation for Fired-Clay Ceramics. Archaeometry 57(2): 392-404.

The paper is open access.

Initial optimism is becoming more tempered...

 Rashid

I would first suggest contacting archaeologists at one of your local universities.

They can probably give you a date based on typologies- chronologies that have been established for your area

We found a very specific material, which can easily be used for direct dating of pottery. But it is rarely to be found. I am talking about birch bark pitch (BBP). We had only samples of 0,3 mg of this material, which should be enough for the Poznan Radiocarbon laboratory. In the attached picture you see one of our samples. That is really is BBP has been analyzed by the technical University of Vienna by Prof. Puchinger and Prof. Sauter with help of Pyrolysis.

The coevality of the pitch with ceramic is given by three possibilities: Either the pitch was cooked in a pot or the pot was repaired with the help of the pitch. Or another possibility birch bark was glued on the surface of a pot with help of the prehistoric glue pitch, only the pitch preserved.

For the present analysis of the samples the following method was applied, starting with Pyrolysis (Py) in a Double-Shot Pyrolyser (Frontier Labs. Ltd.), then the pyrolysate was transported as usual into the CGC unit, but the thus separated single compounds are here registered by mass spectrometry (MS).

Of course, the results obtained by this Py-CGC-MS method are subsequently studied by chemometrics.

The method allowed to identify ca. 0.1 mg of pitch as BBP (if uncontaminated by tiny stones, etc.).

We not only found birch bark pitch, but to our knowledge for the first time

beech tree bark pitch (Fagus sylvatica)

The results of the pitch dates allowed to get a sequencing of 15 radiocarbon samples for a period from 5670 to 5050 BC.