THE ASSESSMENT OF ERROR LIMITS IN THERMOLUMINESCENT DATING

Abstract

ABSTRACTS This paper discusses known sources of error, both random and systematic; suggests quantitative limits; and proposes a consistent method for compounding them to yield an overall error in age, both for individual sherds and for the weighted average of a number of sherds from the same context. It is proposed that two error limits should be quoted for the date of a context: first, the standard error of the mean value as calculated from the experimentally observed root‐mean‐square deviation of the individual samples, and secondly, the expected overall error from the sources discussed in the paper. The former can be considered as a lower limit and relevant when comparing contexts on the same or similar sites whereas the latter is more realistic when comparing TL dates with radiocarbon or archaeologic chronology.