Research paper New luminescence dating results based on polymineral fine grains from the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic site of La Ferrassie (Dordogne, SW France) Marine Frouin a, b, * , Guillaume Gu  erin b , Christelle Lahaye b , Norbert Mercier b , S  ebastien Huot c , Vera Aldeias d , Laurent Bruxelles e, f , Laurent Chiotti g , Harold L. Dibble h, i, d , Paul Goldberg j, k , St  ephane Madelaine l, m , Shannon J.P. McPherron d , Dennis Sandgathe n , Teresa E. Steele d, o , Alain Turq l, m a Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK b IRAMAT-CRP2A, UMR 5060 CNRS e Universit e Bordeaux Montaigne e Maison de l'arch eologie, Esplanade des Antilles, 33600 Pessac, France c Illinois State Geological Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA d Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany e French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research, INRAP,141 rue d’Al esia, Paris, France f School of Geography Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa g D epartement de Pr ehistoire, Mus eum National d'Histoire Naturelle, UMR 7194 CNRS, 24620 Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, France h Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA i Institute for Human Origins, Arizona State University, USA j Institute for Archaeological Sciences, University of Tübingen, Rümelinstr. 23, 72070 Tübingen, Germany k School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia l Mus ee National de Pr ehistoire, F-24620 Les Eyzies-de-Tayac, France m CNRS, Universit e de Bordeaux, MCC, PACEA, UMR 5199, F-33400 Talence, France n Human Evolution Studies Program and Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada o University of California, Davis, USA article info Article history: Received 21 March 2016 Received in revised form 8 February 2017 Accepted 21 February 2017 Available online 23 February 2017 Keywords: Luminescence dating Feldspar Polymineral fine grains Anomalous fading IRSL pIR-IRSL abstract In this study we compare different infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) signals for dating archaeo- logical deposits. The IRSL and the more recently developed post-IR IRSL (pIR-IR) methods were inves- tigated using polymineral fine grains extracted from the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic western excavation area in the site of La Ferrassie (Dordogne, SW France). The IRSL data measured at 50  C (IR 50 ) are compared to those obtained with the elevated pIR-IR signals measured for two stimulation tem- peratures, 225  C (pIR-IR 225 ) and 290  C (pIR-IR 290 ). The signals are documented in terms of bleaching and fading rates. In addition, comparisons of the IR 50 ages corrected either with the H þ L method (Huntley and Lamothe, 2001) or with the dose rate correction method (DRC, Lamothe et al., 2003) are presented. Results show that the polymineral fine grains give a reasonable estimate of the burial age of the samples. The IR 50 and pIR-IR 225 provide the most reliable ages when they are corrected using the DRC method (because of saturation effects). The polymineral ages are then compared with the previously obtained ages on K-feldspar coarse grains, quartz OSL (Guerin et al., 2015) and radiocarbon ages with the aim of accessing information on the depositional processes. It appears that further comparison of pol- ymineral fine grains to coarse grains is beneficial to evaluate bleaching. Moreover, the polymineral re- sults either confirm or refine the chronology of the La Ferrassie sequence proposed by Gu erin et al. (2015), that is, the Mousterian layers range from marine isotope stage (MIS) 5 to the middle of MIS 3. In particular, i) the base of Layer 3 is pushed back to the end of MIS 4 or beginning MIS 3 and ii) the chronological attribution of Layers 4 and 5 is confirmed as MIS 3. Finally, the chronology of the Auri- gnacian layer (Layer 7) is strengthened by all the feldspars results. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX13QY, UK. E-mail address: marine.frouin@rlaha.ox.ac.uk (M. Frouin). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary Geochronology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quageo http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2017.02.009 1871-1014/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Quaternary Geochronology 39 (2017) 131e141