Martin Jim Aitken FRS (11 March 1922 – 13 June 2017) was a British archaeometrist. Aitken was born in

Stamford, Lincolnshire Stamford is a town and civil parish in the South Kesteven District of Lincolnshire, England. The population at the 2011 census was 19,701 and estimated at 20,645 in 2019. The town has 17th- and 18th-century stone buildings, older timber-framed ...

, and studied physics at

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

. He was a fellow of

Linacre College, Oxford Linacre College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the UK whose members comprise approximately 50 fellows and 550 postgraduate students. Linacre is a diverse college in terms of both the international composition of its me ...

. He was Professor of Archaeometry at the University of Oxford from 1985 until he retired in 1989. Aitken organised annual meetings which became the Symposium on Archaeometry and Archaeological Prospection". He had an interest in

absolute dating Absolute dating is the process of determining an age on a specified chronology in archaeology and geology. Some scientists prefer the terms chronometric or calendar dating, as use of the word "absolute" implies an unwarranted certainty of accuracy ...

: radiocarbon dating from 1957,

thermoluminescence dating Thermoluminescence dating (TL) is the determination, by means of measuring the accumulated radiation dose, of the time elapsed since material containing crystalline minerals was either heated (lava, ceramics) or exposed to sunlight (sediment ...

from the 1960s, and later helped develop

optically stimulated luminescence In physics, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) is a method for measuring doses from ionizing radiation. It is used in at least two applications: * Luminescence dating of ancient materials: mainly geological sediments and sometimes fired pott ...

as a dating method dating. He died in June 2017 at the age of 95.Avis de décès
(in French)

Bibliography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aitken, Martin 1922 births 2017 deaths British archaeologists Fellows of the Royal Society Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford People educated at Stamford School