On some problems of interpretation of physical dating methods results: An example of thermoluminescence dating

It happens quite often that some absolute age assessments made by physical methods do not coincide with predictions based on archaeological information acquired during excavation and analyses of the findings. There may be numerous reasons for such discrepancy and erroneous results of physical methods can not be arbitrary excluded. However, the examples of comparison of TL and C-14 dates and other analyses, presented in this paper, indicate another possibility. Traditional methods, such as a ceramic typology or a stratigraphy, occur to be not sensitive enough to separate multiple phases of occupation of an archaeological site, for example. The present work supports this opinion by results obtained for several Polish sites coverings time from the Middle Ages back to the Middle Paleolith and calls for a different approach to the problem of using absolute age estimates, produced by physical methods, in archaeology and other earth sciences.