Cold Light from the Sediments of a Hot Desert: How Luminescence Dating Sheds Light on the Landscape Development of the Northeastern Atacama

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating is essential to establish a chronometry for the reconstruction of the history of the landscape development in the Palpa-Nasca region. To achieve this, we apply both traditional techniques based on the preparation of disturbed samples and a novel, spatially resolved HR-OSL technique used for samples with their original mineral-grain structure (Greilich and Wagner, this volume). The new technique offers a great potential to access new types of sediment archives relevant to geomorphological and geoarchaeological studies.