The project aims at establishing Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) as a dating technique applicable to historical binders through understanding the changes in concentration of radiation-sensitive defects with the dose of radiation, and therefore with time, in anthropogenic carbonates in the form of lime mortars and plasters. Being relatively young carbonate materials, they present an exciting opportunity to push forward the boundaries of EPR dating into historical archaeology. Systematic EPR, SEM, XRD, petrography, and cathodoluminescence analyses will be performed on modern and 500–2000-year-old historical binders. Analysis of the formation of radiation defects will lead to estimating the lower range of EPR dating of carbonates. The methodological basis of EPR dating of lime mortars and plasters developed within the project will be tested on samples of known age, with the final goal of providing EPR dates for anthropogenic carbonates for the first time.
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