Comparison of regenerative-dose single-aliquot and multiple-aliquot (SARA)protocols using heated quartz from archaeological sites

We have tested the suitability of a new regenerative-dose single-aliquot pr otocol (Murray and Roberts, Radiation Measurements, in press) for dating 16 samples of heated quartz, taken from 11 different archaeological sites. Re presentative examples of changes in sensitivity with preheat temperature an d with regenerative cycle are presented, and it is shown that the sensitivi ty changes in the optically stimulated luminescence response are linearly c orrelated with those of the 110 degrees C thermoluminescence (TL) response. We deduce that the new single-aliquot protocol, which corrects for sensiti vity change using the 110 degrees C TL response, should be applicable to th ese fired samples. Estimates of the 16 equivalent doses derived using the n ew protocol are compared with values obtained using the multiple-aliquot pr otocol SARA (single-aliquot regeneration and added dose; Mejdahl and Botter -Jensen, 1994) and the agreement is satisfactory. A simplification of the n ew protocol is also tested. For our samples, we do not find any significant dependence of the equivalent dose on preheating (for 10 s) in the temperat ure range 160-300 degrees C. We conclude that the new single-aliquot regene rative-dose protocol is a fast and reliable method for estimating the equiv alent dose in heated quartz. It has considerable potential in many archaeol ogical applications, especially for small samples and/or heterogeneous mate rial. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.