Facultad De Cc.Fisicas, Universidad Complutense De Madrid, Spain (UCM)

Role in the Network
  • Main speciality research areas: Soils and sediment magnetisation, magnetic properties, archaeological ceramic technologies, geomagnetic secular variation and 4 dimensional (space and time) geomagnetic modelling.
  • Other factors: The largest team of the Network. Ideally located for studies during Moorish times when the extant European records are poor.
  • Madrid will host the AARCH workshop 3 and the AARCH midterm meeting
Research Linkage
  • Team bi-lateral agreements with Plymouth, UK and Leoben, Austria. Formal links with Madrid Science Foundation, Spanish National Science Foundation.
Senior Scientist

Prof. M.L. Osete (e-mail: mlosete@fis.ucm.es , Tel.: 0034 91 3944396, Fax: 0034 91 3944398)

Young researchers  
Gianluca Catanzariti
Dr. Andrzej Rakowski
Project
Gianluca Catanzariti
The inhomogeneous geographical distribution and existing time gaps (especially between the  VI  and IX century) in the Spanish  archaeomagnetic database are the principal problems that need to be solved.  On  the  one hand, Spain has a very  rich  archaeological  heritage  and,  as  result  of economic development, a wide variety of remains is  continually  discovered. Unfortunately,  in  many  cases newly  discovered  sites  need  to  be destroyed as part  of  this  development  and  our  activity  is  especially oriented to reduce this loss of information.
 
Within this framework, new contacts with Iberian  archaeologists  have  been established, and about 15 new sites  have  been  sampled.  This  number  will continue to increase as new sites are identified and  sampled.  In  addition to refining and enlarging the Iberian secular variation curve, some  of  the new sites are of interest in testing the precision  of  the  archaeomagnetic method.

A detailed investigation of the magnetic properties of the sampled  material is carried out. Blocking temperature and  coercivity  spectra  of both, the natural  and  laboratory-imparted  remanences  are used  to define the mineral phases carrying the remanent magnetisation and to  choose the best demagnetisation technique. These experiments are complemented  by magnetic hysteresis measurements. Further information will  be  provided  by detailed thin  section, electron  microscopy  and  other  compositional analyses such as X-Ray diffraction.

Andrzej Rakowski
The aim of my study is "Anthropogenic changes of radiocarbon concentration in modern wood". I am a specialist in radiocarbon dating, and I hope my knowledge in this matter can help solving problems concerning the chronology of archaeological sites which were or will be examined. Using atomic mass spectroscopy (AMS for short), extremely small carbon samples (containing < 1mg of organic Carbon) are necessary  for dating only. It can be useful for dating for example soot from the furnace or microfossils deposited in lake sediments in order to build a precise chronology for the site.
Recent Publicatios
Núñez, J.I., Osete, M.L., Ruiz-Martinez, V.C., Fabien, A. and D.H. Tarling, A First Secular Variation Curve for the Iberian Peninsula. Geophysical Research Abstracts, 5, 13381, 2003.

Núñez, J.I. Osete, M.L. and  D. Bernal, Primera curva de Variación Secular a partir de datos paleomagnéticos para la Península Ibérica. 2&ordf; Asamblea Hispano-Portuguesa de Geodesia y Geofísica, Ed.: Instituto Geofísico do Infante D. Luís, Portugal. 309-310, 2000.

Núñez, J.I., Osete, M.L. and D. Tarling, Datación arqueomagnética del taller: El horno del sector D. El paleomagnetismo como técnica de datación arqueológica. In: Excavaciones arqueológicas en los alfares romanos de la Venta del Carmen (Los Barrios, Cádiz). Coeditado por Universidad Autónoma de Madrid y el Ayuntamiento de los Barrios (Cádiz). 307-328, 1998.
Web-Link
http://www.ucm.es/info/Geofis/