A comparison of single-grain and small aliquot dating of fine sand from Cyrenaica, northern Libya

Over the last decade, single-grain studies have significantly enhanced optically stimulated luminescence dating of quartz from Quaternary and archaeological sediments. However, single-grain dating is time-consuming and requires specialised equipment, leading a number of authors to advocate measurement of small, multi-grain aliquots, as a viable alternative. In this study, we compare single-grain and small aliquot data from four samples from Cyrenaica, northern Libya. Discrepancies are found between the results obtained using these two techniques, which we attribute to: (1) grains with poor luminescence properties, which are present in the small aliquot data but not the single-grain data and (2) averaging effects in multi-grain aliquots. We suggest that small aliquot measurements are not always an appropriate alternative to single-grain analysis, and that small aliquot datasets should be treated with caution.

► Single-grain (SG) and small aliquot (SA) OSL measurements yield different De distributions.
► Discrepancies are explained by the presence of grains with poor luminescence properties in the SA.
► Averaging effects are also observed in multi-grain measurements.
► We suggest that caution must be exercised when analysing the results of small aliquot dating.