PRELIMINARY ARCHAEOMAGNETIC RESULTS FROM A FLOOR SEQUENCE OF A BREAD KILN IN LUBECK (GERMANY)

A sequence of 25 bread-kiln floors was sampled for archaeomagnetic mea surements in a bakehouse in the old town of Lubeck, Germany. Due to ar chaeological dating this kiln floor sequence has been built up presuma bly from the last 13th to the 18th century. The primary magnetisation component is carried by maghemite (maghemite) and is very stable. Smal l viscous, magnetisation components could be removed easily. The preli minary results of characteristic remanent magnetisation for 23 of the kiln-floor layers show clearly the trend of the geomagnetic secular va riation expected for that time interval. By comparison with French and British master curves, the kiln-floor sequence started around 1425 an d lasted until 1775 AD. Presently, confidence circles are relatively l arge and need refining by measuring more samples, which have already b een collected. Together with C-14 dating that can be determined from t he charcoals found in the lowest layers and thermoluminescence dating of the layers, we expect to obtain, for the first time, a secular vari ation curve for Northern Germany covering the time interval from 1400 to 1800 years AD.