RADIOCARBON DETERMINATIONS, LUMINESCENCE DATING AND AUSTRALIAN ARCHAEOLOGY

The September 1993 editorial (ANTIQUITY 65: 44-5) made comment on recent Australian dates, by luminescence techniques, significantly older than radiocarbon determinations from elsewhere in Australia and New Guinea, which formed a single continent in the late Pleistocene. (There are hints also from the Americas of a discrepancy between dates by the two methods.) The period involved, c. 30-60,000 years ago, is crucial also in the Old World mainland, where the beginning of the European Upper Palaeolithic is usually set at c. 35, 000 years ago by radiocarbon determinations.