Université de Fribourg

Novel insights on the geomagnetic field in West Africa from a new intensity reference curve (0-2000 AD)

Kapper, Lisa ; Serneels, Vincent ; Panovska, Sanja ; Ruíz, Rafael García ; Hellio, Gabrielle ; Groot, Lennart de ; Goguitchaichvili, Avto ; Morales, Juan ; Ruíz, Rubén Cejudo

In: Scientific Reports, 2020, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 1121

The geomagnetic field variations on the continent of Africa are still largely undeciphered for the past two millennia. In spite of archaeological artefacts being reliable recorders of the ancient geomagnetic field strength, only few data have been reported for this continent so far. Here we use the Thellier-Coe and calibrated pseudo- Thellier methods to recover archaeointensity data from...

Université de Fribourg

Reconstructing the geomagnetic field in west africa: first absolute intensity results from Burkina Faso

Kapper, Lisa ; Donadini, Fabio ; Serneels, Vincent ; Tema, Evdokia ; Goguitchaichvili, Avto ; Morales, Juan Julio

In: Scientific Reports, 2017, vol. 7, p. 45225

We present absolute geomagnetic intensities from iron smelting furnaces discovered at the metallurgical site of Korsimoro, Burkina Faso. Up to now, archaeologists recognized four different types of furnaces based on different construction methods, which were related to four subsequent time periods. Additionally, radiocarbon ages obtained from charcoal confine the studied furnaces to ages...

Université de Fribourg

Directional changes of the geomagnetic field in West Africa: Insights from the metallurgical site of Korsimoro

Donadini, Fabio ; Serneels, Vincent ; Kapper, Lisa ; El Kateb, Akram

In: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 2015, vol. 430, p. 349–355

This work shows the first archeomagnetic directions from Western Africa measured on 32 iron smelting kilns dated between 650 and 1800 AD. The archeological excavation of the vast metallurgical site of Korsimoro established the existence of four distinct iron-smelting techniques. The time-frame of each technique could be clearly determined with radiocarbon dating. Many of the kilns investigated in...