Some ESR observations on bone, tooth enamel and eggshell

ESR measurements have been made on bone and teeth samples excavated from historical sites on three New Zealand offshore islands and on Taumako, one of the Duff Islands (southeastern Solomons). All of the samples have ages ranging from A.D. 1350 to A.D. 1800. The New Zealand offshore island samples show a very weak natural dating signal, characteristic of recent specimens, virtually obscured by a signal from an organic carbon radical. A detailed analysis of results from these samples suggests that the supralinearity hypothesis (Hennig and Grün, 1983) previously proposed is, in fact, an artifact of the analysis. In addition, all the samples from Taumako show an intense dating signal and evidence of electron trap saturation. The implications of these results are discussed.