LUMINESCENCE DATING DEVELOPMENTS IN THE GODWIN LABORATORY, CAMBRIDGE - A PERSONAL VIEW

This paper presents a personal view of the development and application of thermoluminescence dating during the period from 1979 to 1988 as c arried out at the Godwin Laboratory, Cambridge. It covers a large numb er, but by no means all, of the types of material that were studied an d the global nature of the research programme. The difficulties and su ccesses are presented equally and they illustrate the complexity of ap plying empirical methodology to natural systems.The concluding paragra phs discuss recent developments which open up a new range of opportuni ties for dating sediments, as well as the recent amino acid studies wh ich confirm the Cambridge TL studies, and current TL research in the G odwin Laboratory. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd