OSL rock surface burial dating of megalith structures in the Dzhungar Mountains - Kazakhstan

The Dzhungar Mountains in northern Tien Shan, Kazakhstan, are part of the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor, which extends from the Hindu Kush to the Altai. This corridor is significant for human migration and cultural exchange due to its water availability and ecological diversity. The Dzhungar Mountains contain several Bronze Age sites, including the Dali settlement complex and an adjacent circular megalithic structure several meters in diameter. Megaliths in Central Inner Asia are rare, undated, and understudied, leaving their chronological relationship to the Bronze Age unclear.

Infrared Stimulated Luminescence rock surface burial dating (IRSL RSbD) is a new tool in quaternary geochronology and allows determining the burial age of rock surfaces since their last exposure to sunlight. The method is based on the fact that, over time, rock surfaces can store energy in the crystal lattice of rock-building minerals, such as feldspar, due to naturally occurring radiation. This energy can be read out as luminescence signal upon infrared stimulation under laboratory conditions and burial ages calculated. 

For dating the Dali megalith structure, we used infrared-stimulated luminescence of feldspar from the buried face of the granitic megalith boulders and complemented this with single-grain OSL dating of the sediment beneath the boulders. This combined dating approach helps to establish a chronological framework for the Dali megalithic structure and assess its relationship to the Bronze Age timeline of the Inner Asian Mountain Corridor.