The megalithic jar sites of Laos (often referred to as the Plain Jars) remain one Southeast Asia’s most mysterious and least understood archaeological cultures. sites, recently inscribed UNESCO World Heritage, host hollowed stone jars, up three metres in height, which appear scattered across landscape, alone or clustered groups more than 400. Until now, it has not been possible estimate when ja...

Pilgrimstad in central Sweden is an important locality for reconstructing environmental changes during the last glacial period (the Weichselian). Its central location has implications for the Scandinavian Ice Sheet as a whole. The site has been assigned an Early Weichselian age (marine isotope stage (MIS) 5 a/c; 474 ka), based on pollen stratigraphic correlations with type sections in continent...

The Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) eruption, dated by 40Ar/39Ar and various stratigraphic methods to ca. 39,000 cal BP, generated a massive ash plume from its source in southern Italy across Southeastern and Eastern Europe. At the Kostenki-Borshchevo open-air sites on the Middle Don River in Russia, Upper Paleolithic artifact assemblages are buried below, within, and above the CI tephra (which is re...

Optically stiniulated luminescence (OSL). has been studied in synthetic quartz crystals. which had previously been exposed to Jtor X-irradiations. The main emission hands appeared at 380 and -~440 nm. The excitation spectra of these emission bands were now measured and showed both a maximum at 330nm. This maximum coincides with an excitation maximum of the phototransferred thermoluminescence (P...