Luminescence dating of pottery from later prehistoric Britain

Dating of later prehistoric settlements relies heavily on pottery typologie s in England and yet there has been little scientific dating in order to ve rify these typologies. In this work, luminescence dating techniques were ap plied directly to the pottery which forms the typological framework. Excell ent agreement was obtained between the luminescence ages and archaeological age ranges for known-age pottery sherds with diagnostic form and surface d ecoration. A lower correlation, however, was found in several regions betwe en the luminescence ages for undecorated body sherds and the archaeological assessment which was necessarily based solely on fabric, suggesting the ne ed for reassessment of these fabric chronologies.