Abstract A new luminescence dating protocol was developed to circumvent the problem of thermal transfer and poor thermal stability of Infrared Stimulated Luminescence (IRSL) of samples from late glacial loess sediments in Central Alaska, USA. This new protocol is proposed as an alternative to routine procedures for which scattered and erratic results were obtained using standard IRSL and post-IR IRSL protocols on loess samples from the McDonald Creek archaeological site. The difficulty to date Alaskan loess has been acknowledged in the past, but the reasons for this phenomenon have not been clearly identified. This difficulty is even greater for young samples, as shown in this study. It is suggested here that the particular mineralogical composition of the Central Alaskan loess can be related to problematic luminescence behaviour. To overcome problematic results, we developed a Low Preheat IRSL (LPH-IRSL) protocol. This protocol is minimally affected by the presence of other minerals than K-feldspars in the samples, such as albite, muscovite and clinochlorite, which can be very difficult to eliminate during the preparation steps prior to IRSL measurements. Dose recovery experiments and multiple other tests indicate that a protocol with low preheat temperature yields the best results in this specific context. Thermally transferred luminescence induced during the measurement is kept at a minimal level. Consequently, considering independent age controls available from radiocarbon, equivalent doses are successfully determined, their distribution is narrow, and the g-value has low scatter. This protocol has great potential for dating polymineral samples, whether it is silt-sized sediments like loess, fine-grained like clay and micro-samples like art pieces, common in archaeological contexts. The chronological results obtained for this project suggest a human occupation of the area during the Late Pleistocene to mid-Holocene period, which is in excellent agreement with preliminary radiocarbon chronology obtained during site testing and also with the regional archaeological framework.

中文翻译：

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探索低温预热在白令考古背景下长石 IRSL 测年中的应用

摘要 为了解决美国阿拉斯加中部晚冰期黄土沉积物红外受激发光 (IRSL) 样品的热传递和热稳定性差问题，开发了一种新的发光测年方案。这一新协议被提议作为常规程序的替代方案，在这些程序中，使用标准 IRSL 和后 IR IRSL 协议对来自麦当劳溪考古遗址的黄土样本获得了分散和不稳定的结果。过去人们已经承认阿拉斯加黄土迄今为止的难度，但尚未明确确定这种现象的原因。如本研究所示，对于年轻样本而言，这种困难更大。这里建议阿拉斯加中部黄土的特定矿物成分可能与有问题的发光行为有关。为了克服有问题的结果，我们开发了低预热 IRSL (LPH-IRSL) 协议。该协议受样品中除钾长石以外的其他矿物的影响最小，例如钠长石、白云母和斜绿石，在 IRSL 测量之前的准备步骤中很难消除这些矿物。剂量恢复实验和多项其他测试表明，在这种特定情况下，具有低预热温度的方案会产生最佳结果。在测量过程中引起的热转移发光保持在最低水平。因此，考虑到可从放射性碳获得的独立年龄控制，成功地确定了等效剂量，它们的分布很窄，并且 g 值具有低分散性。该协议在对多矿物样品进行测年方面具有巨大潜力，无论是像黄土一样的淤泥大小的沉积物，像粘土一样的细粒还是像艺术品一样的微样本，在考古环境中很常见。该项目获得的年代学结果表明该地区在晚更新世至中全新世时期被人类占领，这与现场测试期间获得的初步放射性碳年代学以及区域考古框架非常吻合。