TL and OSL cross-dating for Valcorrente site in Belpasso (Catania, Italy)

The prehistoric village of Valcorrente (Catania) has been inhabited for a long period, from Late-Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age. For archaeologists, the site represents an important source of information about this Sicilian prehistoric period, not deeply studied. In order to reconstruct the chronology of the site, pottery samples are collected in different stratigraphic units during archaeological excavations. Most of collected potteries belonged to domestic or coarse types and they cannot be dated on typological and stylistic basis. Thus, cross-dating by ThermoLuminescence (TL) and Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) is employed. The results obtained by OSL and TL have been crossed and statistical analysis in the data elaboration allows us to date the different stratigraphic units involved in the sampling collection and to obtain an accurate chronology reconstruction of the site that is representative of the most important Sicilian prehistoric period.