Martin J. Aitken

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Martin Jim Aitken (born March 11, 1922 in Stamford (Lincolnshire) , † June 13, 2017 in Augerolles ) was a British physicist, known for his work in archaeometry .

Life

Aitken was a radar officer in the Royal Air Force from 1942 to 1946 and then studied physics at Oxford University with a master’s degree in 1948 (initially studying nuclear physics at the Clarendon Laboratory) and a doctorate (D. Phil.) In 1954. In 1957 he became Deputy Director of the Research Laboratory for Archeology and History of Art in Oxford, which was founded in 1955 and whose first director was Edward Thomas Hall (Teddy Hall). Aitken was Professor of Archaeometry at Oxford from 1985. In 1991 he withdrew from active laboratory work, but remained scientifically active.

In 1958 he was the founding editor of the journal Archaeometry .

In the 1950s, he pioneered the localization of archaeological sites using magnetometers .

He is considered (early 1960s) to be one of the inventors of thermoluminescent dating (TL), which is widely used in archeology. Initially, the method was applied to dating ceramics - the amount of light released when heated again was a measure of the time of firing. But other archaeological materials that were burned (such as stones or flint) were dated in the 1970s, which required new techniques. From the end of the 1970s, it was recognized that sediments that were isolated from sunlight could also be dated using the same principle (Wintle, David Huntley from Simon Frazer University, 1979, and previously in Russia). This finding was further developed into the method of OSL (Optically Stimulated Luminescence) dating by Huntley and others in the mid-1980s. OSL dating was also used and developed early in Aitken's Oxford laboratory.

In 1983 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society . In 1992 he received the Gemant Award from the American Institute of Physics. In 1997 he was awarded the Archaeological Institute of America's Pomerance Science Medal .

Others

There is a prize named after Martin Aitken (Martin Aitken Prize for best oral presentation), which was last awarded at the 2017 international luminescence conference in Cape Town (South Africa) for the best lecture.

Fonts

  • Physics and Archeology. Interscience, New York 1961 (2nd edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1974, ISBN 0-19-851922-2 ).
  • Thermoluminescence dating. Academic Press, London et al. 1985, ISBN 0-12-046380-6 .
  • Luminescence dating. A guide for non specialists. In: Archaeometry. Vol. 31, No. 2, 1989, ISSN  0365-6004 , pp. 147-159, doi : 10.1111 / j.1475-4754.1989.tb01010.x .
  • Science-based dating in archeology. Longman, New York NY / London 1990, ISBN 0-582-49309-9 .
  • as editor with RE Taylor: Chronometric dating in archeology (= Advances in archaeological and museum Science. Vol. 2). Plenum Press, New York NY et al. 1997, ISBN 0-306-45715-6 .
  • An introduction to optical dating. The dating of quaternary sediments by the use of photon stimulated luminescence. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-854092-2 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Aitken fut un pionnier en datation des volcans In: La Montagne , accessed on July 19, 2017
  2. ^ The in-house journal of his institute in Oxford. The name archaeometry was coined by the Oxford archeology professor Christopher Hawkes , who, together with Lindemann (Lord Cherwell), was largely responsible for the establishment of the institute.
personal data
SURNAME Aitken, Martin J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aitken, Martin Jim (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British physicist
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Stamford (Lincolnshire)
DATE OF DEATH June 13, 2017
Place of death Augerolles