Thermoluminescent method of dating applied to fossilized animal remains

The feasibility of applying the thermoluminescent method to dating of fossilized paleontological animal remains is investigated. Relatively easy application and a wide range of chronological time periods over which the method produces reliable results with minimized uncertainties under an optimized experimental setup, make the method highly suitable for fossil dating. Mammoth remains from a collection of an archaeological museum were dated using samples of teeth, bones, and tusks. We determined two distinct age regimes of the investigated mammoth remains: (1) ranging from 12 to 28 thousand years (the bulk of the samples) and (2) from 40 to 45 thousand years. For isolated samples, the estimated ages were above 100 thousand years.