Luminescence dating and quartz grain surface features of aeolian sediments from Agia Napa, Cyprus

E. Tsakalos, C. Athanassas & Y. Bassiakos Στο E. Photos-Jones, Y. Bassiakos, E. Filippaki, A. Hein, I. Karatasios, V. Kilikoglou & E. Kouloumpi (eds), 2016. Proceedings of the 6th Symposium of the Hellenic Society for Archaeometry (Bar International Series 2780), Oxford: 201-206.

The coastal zone of Southern Cyprus is of great archaeological and palaeoenvironmental significance. Despite the great deal of palaeoenvironmental data produced for other Eastern Mediterranean coastal sites, the abundance of field evidence on the southeast coasts of Cyprus has been exploited to only a limited extent to date. Archives of relative sea- level change and aeolian sand accumulation have been encoded in the coastal sedimentary deposits along the coast of Cyprus. The purpose of this research work is to examine the chronology of aeolianite deposits of Southeast Cyprus and provide preliminary comments on the Late Quaternary environmental change by employing up-to-date luminescence dating methods. Another aim of this study is the analysis of the microtextures that are present on quartz grains of coastal dunes from South East Cyprus to uncover their depositional history.