Relative Dating - Learning Materials

Cultural and Archaeological ANTH 2301 Relative Dating The first dating techniques made use of the geologically derived relative dating concepts. Geologists discovered layers of various stone kinds on exposed cliffsides in canyons, which they named strata (stratum in the singular). The law of superposition was named after their theory that the layers at the bottom were older than the strata higher above. The rule of superposition states that things inside geological strata can also be ascribed relative ages based on the supposition that objects in deeper levels are older than those in layers above. The term "strategic superposition" refers to the use of the law of superposition in archaeological fieldwork. Since each layer would have taken a long time to form and, unless disturbed, would have remained stable for a very long time, this method assumes that any cultural or natural artefact found within a stratum, or that crosses two or more strata in a crosscutting relationship, is younger than the stratum itself. Natural events like volcanoes or floods as well as human, animal, or plant interaction are examples of factors that might alter strata. Nicolas Steno, a Danish physicist, initially postulated the idea of superposition in 1669. Based on their locations on the globe, some of the earliest uses of this rule by researchers determined the ages of dinosaur bones and megafauna—large species, mostly mammals. The dinosaur bones were found to have been deposited tens of thousands of years apart from the mammalian megafauna, with the dinosaur remains being much older. These initial clues on the actual age of fossil remains pointed to a completely new and revolutionary comprehension of the length of geological time. Eventually, it was found that the ages of the same strata at various locations in the region may be presumed to be the same if a certain set and sequence of strata are reported in several sites and across a sufficiently vast area. Thanks to this realisation, geologists and archaeologists may now date phenomena seen throughout an area by utilising the relative locations of soil and rock formations. This approach is known as archaeological stratification, and archaeologists use it to identify human cultural settings by searching for stratified strata of artefacts. Age is determined using stratigraphic layers that are located under cultural layers; layers above are thought to be more recent than those below. Typological sequences are what archaeologists use as a backup dating technique. Using this approach, the relationship between generated items is ascertained by comparing them to other objects that have a similar look. Many subdisciplines of archaeology use this technique to figure out how common items relate to one another. For instance, spearpoints made by Indigenous peoples are frequently the subject of typological sequencing, which compares the different kinds of points discovered at various sites and examines how they evolved over time depending on their relative placements within an archaeological site. The procedure of seriation is used in another type of typological sequencing. Artefacts are arranged chronologically using the relative dating technique known as seriation once it has been shown that they belong to the same civilization. In the 1800s, Flinders Petrie, an English Egyptologist, invented seriation. He created the technique to date the burials he was discovering, which lacked any date-related information and were too old to be dated using stratigraphy. He created a pottery-based dating scheme for strata in order to solve the issue.Dating estimations are not the only function for which typological sequences of pottery, stone tools, and other artefacts that survive in archaeological sites are employed. They can also provide valuable insights into how society, culture, and worldviews have evolved throughout time. For instance, in about 12,000 BCE, during the Neolithic period, often known as the agricultural age, there are notable changes in stratigraphy. These include the emergence of cultivated soils, pollens that signify the cultivation of certain plants, indications of more sedentary lifestyles, and a rise in the use of pottery as food and grain storage became more and more crucial. A increasing population and the emergence of a more intricate cultural and economic structure, involving the ownership of land and animals as well as the start of commerce, are also demonstrated by archaeological evidence. The presence of pottery types linked to a certain site in other adjacent or distant places might serve as an indicator of trade activities. Understanding the links between trade goods might provide insight into potential political and economic interconnections between nearby towns and villages.