Archaeologist Jeff Rose with a rock used to make Nubian Points in Wadi Ghadun, Oman
The oldest of Oman’s Nubian Points were found to be 106,000 years old. But how?
Just like a newspaper that is left out in the Sun for too long and becomes bleached and faded out, exposed stone tools can also absorb sunlight which alters the chemical structure of their mineral content over many thousands of years.
And similar to comparing one faded newspaper to another, it’s possible to calibrate when one stone artifact was left in the sun relative to another—revealing their age with remarkable accuracy.
Called Optical Luminescence Dating, this is one of many different dating methods archaeologists use, and is accurate to about 300,000 years ago.