Geomagnetic Field Paleointensity Variations Recorded in the Archeological Ceramics of the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages in the Central Russian Plain

Abstract—The paper reports petromagnetic and archeomagnetic studies of ceramic fragments of the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages from archeological sites of the Grishinskii Istok III, Tyukov gorodok, and Shishkino hillfort, which are located in the Oka River basin, Ryazan district, Russian Federation. In total, 43 determinations of geomagnetic field intensity were obtained for the time interval of 1500–400 B.C., including 10 determinations for ceramics of the Grishinskii Istok III, 11 determinations for ceramics of the Tyukov gorodok, and 22 determinations for ceramics of the Shishkino hillfort. The investigated time interval is characterized by the elevated values of the geomagnetic field intensity of 55–59 μT, which are much higher than the average field intensity for the Russian Plain in the IV–first half of III millennium B.C. Obtained VADM values for the central Russian Plain fall in a wide range of values obtained on the Georgian archeological sites located in the same longitudinal sector. A large scatter of data can be related both to the large error in ¹⁴C determination, which is comparable with the duration of the time intervals under investigation, and with the high velocity of magnetic field variations within this time interval.