3. Material and methods
A 2-2.5 cm thick brick-red horizon from the base of the excavated hearth 1 (Fig. 2a) consisting of heated loess was
sampled for luminescence dating (sample code BT483; excavation number WA-85110). A cube of w30 cm length with the brickred horizon at its top was carefully cut out of the loess underlying the hearth (Fig. 2b). The border between visibly heated and unheated loess was marked in black at the aspects of the cube, in
order to allow sampling of the appropriate parts under the dim luminescence laboratory illumination by red diodes (Mauz et al., 2002). The marking was set slightly higher than the fuzzy border between unheated and heated loess in order to exclude any
visibly unheated material from sampling. The upper 3 mm of the