Extended and revised archaeomagnetic database and secular variation curves from Bulgaria for the last eight millennia

The efforts of geophysicists to describe geomagnetic field behaviour in the past lead to creation of different geomagnetic field models. On the other hand, the established regional palaeosecular variations of geomagnetic elements are increasingly used for dating purposes in archaeology. Both of these goals can be achieved if sufficient amounts of long archaeomagnetic data sets exist for different geographical regions. The accumulation of archaeomagnetic determinations began at the middle of the last century, parallel with the progressive development of experimental methodology and acceptance criteria. The presence of great number of old determinations requires their critical assessment. The important question about the reliability of the associated dating intervals should be also re-assessed. All this requires the continuous refinement and extension of the accumulated databases. This paper presents the last synthesis of Bulgarian archaeomagnetic database and the local palaeosecular variation curves obtained using a statistical treatment based on Bayesian approach (RenCurve software). The rock-magnetic characteristics of the newly included, non-published results are summarized. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.