ESR bone dating in New Zealand

Study of the possibility of using electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy to date New Zealand archaeological bone (Dennison et al., 1985) is continued and an appropriate dating methodology is further developed. The requirement was to produce a method which could be performed simply and rapidly, and deliver accurate and reproducible results. The equivalent dose (ED) of a bone pellet sample is obtained by the additive dose method with extrapolation and after determination of the annual, natural radiation dose rate at the site of origin, the time elapsed since the sample's interment may be calculated. Because of New Zealand's short prehistory, many problems were encountered. Their resolution to this point has enabled a large ‘haystack’ organic decay signal to be removed and a ‘needle’ possible dating signal to be found.