ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATING TECHNIQUES

SIR MORTIMER WHEELER

“new archaeology” excavated urban
centres layer by layer

 “The important thing is that the archaeologist

must know his dates and how to use
them;recorded dates where they are valid and
unwritten dates where geological or physical or
chemical or botanical science can win them from
the earth.”
 RELATIVE /ABSOLUTE

 RELATIVE TECHNIQUES
 Stratigraphy and Seriation
 Typology and Cross Dating
 Fluorine
 Obsidian Hydration
 Pollen Analyses

 ABSOLUTE TECHNIQUES
 Radio Carbon Dating
 Potassium Argon Dating
 Thermoluminescence
 Electron Spin Resonance
 Dendrochronology
 RELATIVE DATING TECHNIQUES

 One of the most fundamental principles of

archaeology is the Law of Superposition.
 The law states that strata that are younger
will be deposited on top of strata that are
older, given normal conditions of
deposition.
 This law is the guiding principle of
stratigraphy, or the study of geological or
soil layers.
 Stratigraphy is still the single best
method that archaeologists have for
determining the relative ages of
archaeological materials.
 RELATIVE DATING

 Relative dating is an invaluable tool, but does not tell us

WHEN an event occurred, just the ORDER in which
events occurred. The oldest technique for establishing
the actual ages of deposits is to use artifacts of a known
age.
 These can be coins with minting dates stamped on
them, writings with dates included, or objects that we
know were only manufactured during a certain time.
SUPERPOSITION
 STRATIGRAPHY

 Stratigraphy is the study of strata, or

layers.
 Specifically, stratigraphy refers to the
application of the Law of Superposition
to soil and geological strata containing
archaeological materials in order to
determine the relative ages of layers.
 In addition, stratigraphy can tell us
much about the processes affecting the
deposition of soils, and the condition of
sites and artifacts
THE LAYERS OF TROY
 SERIATION

 This technique places assemblages of

artefacts into relative order. Petrie used
sequence dating to work back from the
earliest historical phases of Egypt into
pre-dynastic Neolithic times, using groups
of contemporary artefacts deposited
together at a single time in graves.
Seriation was developed in the USA to place
in order finds from strata or other kinds of
assemblages such as potsherds collected
from the surface of sites.
 Petrie’s system of Seriation or Sequence Dating was developed in
1899. The system emphasises the relation of one find to another
rather than an exact date of manufacture. Nine hundred graves
were selected from almost 4000 excavated

Reconstruct the chronological sequence of graves in a cemetery.

Stone tools, pottery, other artefacts.
assumption that design styles follow a bell curve of popularity –
starting slowly, growing to a peak and then dying away as another
style becomes popular.
design popularity will be broadly similar from site to site within the
same culture.
 CROSS DATING

 Cross-dating is a technique used to take

advantage of consistencies in stratigraphy
between parts of a site or different sites, and
objects or strata with a known relative
chronology.
 A specialized form of cross-dating, using
animal and plant fossils, is known as
biostratigraphy.
 FLUORINE DATING

 Fluorine is an element that is found in most

ground water around the world. It can be used
as a relative dating technique.
 Skeletal remains buried in the earth are
subject to a wide range of chemical changes.
One of these changes can occur when
percolating ground water comes into contact
with the remains. The ground water inundates
the bone remains with a solution of minerals
drawn from local soils. This can cause a
change in the mineral composition of the bone.
Hydroxyl ions are displaced with a form of
soluble fluorides. These ions form fluorapatite
which is markedly less soluble. Over time,
more and more fluorides are accumulated. The
rate varies depending on the specific condition
in the soil of the area and increases with age.
 Fluorine dating is chiefly of value in
determining whether bone implements or
human skeletal remains found in association
with other bones were buried at the same
time. It was fluorine dating that was
instrumental in the debunking of Piltdown
Man.
 Potassium Argon Dating

 The Potassium-Argon (K-Ar) dating method is the measurement

of the accumulation of argon in a mineral. In contrast to a
dating method such as C14 dating which measures the
disappearance of a substance, K-Ar dating measure the
accumulation of argon in a substance from the decomposition of
potassium.
 This is relatively easy because argon, being an inert gas, usually
does not leech out of a mineral and is easy to measure in small
samples. The actual date is comprised of the time it has been
formed from molten/heated minerals.
 This method, therefore, is not very useful when dating the time
a human bone has been in the ground, but it does help in giving
the time of many of the artifacts that are often times found
alongside burials.
 If you were to take a piece of everyday rock, the K-Ar method
would give you the date that piece of rock was "reset" by the
changing of it's chemical structure. Many things can and do
change the structure of rocks. Heating, weathering and many
kinds of alterations will reset this time.
 Therefore, archaeologists can determine relatively accurately
how long ago a heat treated projectile point was made, or a
piece of pottery was last used to cook food.
 POTASSIUM ARGON DATING
 Potassium-Argon Dating Potassium-Argon dating is the
only viable technique for dating very old archaeological
materials. Geologists have used this method to date
rocks as much as 4 billion years old.
 It is based on the fact that some of the radioactive
isotope of Potassium, Potassium-40 (K-40) ,decays to the
gas Argon as Argon-40 (Ar-40).
 By comparing the proportion of K-40 to Ar-40 in a
sample of volcanic rock, and knowing the decay rate of
K-40, the date that the rock formed can be determined.
 POLLEN DATING
PALYNOLOGY

 Each year seed-bearing plants release

large numbers of pollen grains. This
process results in a "rain" of pollen that
falls over many types of environments.
Pollen that ends up in lake beds or peat
bogs is the most likely to be preserved,
but pollen may also become fossilized in
arid conditions if the soil is acidic or cool.
Scientists can develop a pollen
chronology, or calendar, by noting which
species of pollen were deposited earlier in
time, that is, residue in deeper sediment
or rock layers, than others
 Value of Pollen Dating

 pollen dating provides relative dates

beyond the limits of radiocarbon
(40,000 years), and can be used in
some places where radiocarbon
dates are unobtainable.
 Pollen dating was crucial in the
dating of Ice Man and the Shroud of
Turin
 Weakness of Relative Dating

 The potential flaws in relative dating are

obvious. Simply assuming that an object is
older because it was found at a lower
depth in the record is only subjective
science.
 There are many instances of deep holes
being dug for rubbish pits or to locate well
water that protrude into the record of
older strata injecting more modern
material as they are filled in over time.
 Landslides and slips can completely
change the topography of an entire site
burying what was once on top by that
which is much older, hence reversing the
strata layers
 ABSOLUTE DATING

A more precise and accurate system

is known as absolute dating and can
in most circumstances provide a
calendar year to the object. Since
1950 there has been a
transformation in the dating
techniques of archaeologists.
 Absolute dating is highly dependant
on laboratory analysis. There are a
number of techniques that have
come to archaeology through the
nuclear research efforts during
WW2.
 A Watershed

 'The application of the 14C method to

archaeological materials is generally
considered to be a watershed event in the
history of archaeology and, in particular,
in prehistoric studies “
 R E Taylor
 RADIO CARBON DATING

 Radiocarbon dating uses the biological

assumption that all living things absorb
carbon, both ordinary carbon, C12, and
radioactive carbon, C14, into their living
tissue.
 At the moment of death the C14 begins to
decay at a rate that scientists already
know from other experiments. The missing
amount can then determine how long it
took to be lost and therefore date the
object to a precise period.
 C14 dating can only be used on organic
matter.
 LIMITATIONS OF C14 DATING

 First, the size of the archaeological sample is important.

Larger samples are better, because purification and
distillation remove some matter. Although new
techniques for working with very small samples have
been developed, like accelerator dating, these are very
expensive and still somewhat experimental.

 Second, great care must be taken in collecting and

packing samples to avoid contamination by more recent
carbon. For each sample, clean trowels should be used,
to avoid cross contamination between samples..

 Third, because the decay rate is logarithmic,

radiocarbon dating has significant upper and lower
limits. It is not very accurate for fairly recent deposits
AMS radiocarbon dating is a form of radiocarbon dating
that is more precise and requires less carbon than
conventional radiocarbon methods
 DENDROCHRONOLOGY

 Dendrochronology is another traditional

technique for establishing the abolute date of
events. This is also called Tree-Ring Dating.
 Tree-Ring dating is based on the principle that
the growth rings on certain species of trees
reflect variations in seasonal and annual
rainfall. Trees from the same species, growing
in the same area or environment will be
exposed to the same conditions, and hence
their growth rings will match at the point where
their lifecycles overlap.
 Weaknesses in Dendrochronolgy

 In some areas of the world, particularly in the

tropics, the species available do not have
sufficiently distinct seasonal patterns that they can
be used.

 Where the right species are available, the wood

must be well enough preserved that the rings are
readable. In addition, there must be at least 30
intact rings on any one sample.

 There also must be an existing master strip for that

area and species. There is an absolute limit on how
far back in the past we can date things with tree
rings. Although bristle cone pine trees can live to
9,000 years, this is a very rare phenomenon. As we
try to push our matching of archaeological
specimens beyond the range for which we have
good control data, our confidence in the derived
dates diminishes
 LIMITATIONS

 Fourth, the ratio of C-14 to C-12 in the

atmosphere is not constant. Although it was
originally thought that there has always been
about the same ratio, radiocarbon samples
taken and cross dated using other techniques
like dendrochronology have shown that the
ratio of C-14 to C-12 has varied significantly
during the history of the Earth.
 Finally, although radiocarbon dating is the most
common and widely used chronometric
technique in archaeology today, it is not
infallible. In general, single dates should not be
trusted. Whenever possible multiple samples
should be collected and dated from associated
strata
 Obsidian Hydration

 Developed in 1960, Obsidian Hydration Analysis (OHA) is an

inexpensive technique archaeologists and geoarchaeologists
use to find the age of a site they have excavated. This method is
most often used as a means of relative dating , but an absolute
date may also be estimated in some circumstances
 Obsidian was a common rock used in stone tool making.
Obsidian is used mainly because of its availability in prehistoric
tool making and its unique quality of rehydrating itself after a
fracture
 When obsidian is newly exposed to the atmosphere, its surface
begins to absorb water from the air, which gradually seeps into
the interior of the stone. Several factors can affect the
obsidian's water absorption, including soil type, climate, time
and geochemistry.
 When viewed under a microscope, the layer permeated by
moisture (known as a "rind") becomes visible as a rim when the
rind reaches a width of 0.5 microns (a micron being one
millionth of a meter). The greater the rind thickness, the
greater the age of the exposed obsidian.
The actual measurement of hydration involves
using light transmission to determine the
amount of hydration, and therefore the relative
age of the sample. The prepared slides are
observed by means of a microscope to
determine the amount of light transmission.
 Electron Spin Resonance

 Electron Spin Resonance Dating falls into the group of

dating methods that uses radiation exposure to date
many materials found at archaeological sites. It is also
known as a Radiometric Dating Method.
 This technique is mostly used to date minerals.It has
been used to date such things as sedimentary quartz,
fossilized teeth, flint, and calcium carbonate in
limestone, coral and egg shells.
 This method works by using radiation to cause electrons
to separate from the atoms. These electrons then
become trapped in the crystal lattice of minerals. This
changes the magnetic field of the material at a rate that
is predictable, allowing it to be used to date an item. It
can be used to date when mineralization, sedimentation,
or the last heating of minerals took place. It is often
used to date quartz from meteorite strikes, and places
where earthquake activity has taken place
 THERMOLUMINESCENCE

 Artefacts that are made from

crystalline materials can be
dated using luminescence
analysis. Crystalline minerals
when subjected to intense
heat will burn with differing
colours of flame.
 Mostly used to date pottery
the method is very effective
but costly.
 The greatest problem with
dating an object from
antiquity is that nearly every
absolute dating process
requires the destruction of at
least a piece of the object in
conducting the analysis.
There are relatively few
dating laboratories and
having an artefact dated can
be an expensive exercise
especially if the artefact is
not of great value itself.
 Limitations to
Thermoluminescence

 Thermoluminescence dating is in its developmental

stages. Except for doing simple authenticity tests
of art objects, thermoluminescence dating is not
generally accurate enough for archaeological
standards.
 There are many factors which have to be taken
into account and each of these factors has its own
random error. This, combined with poorly
understood measurement errors, make the
accuracy of thermoluminescence dating only about
15% accurate for a single sample and 7 to 10%
accurate for a suite of samples in a single context.
 Thermoluminescence dating is used for rocks,
minerals and pottery. It dates items between the
years 300-10,000B.P.
 Uranium Disequilibrium

 Uranium-Thorium dating is an absolute dating

technique which uses the properties of the radio-
active half-life of Uranium-238 and Thorium-230.
 Uranium-Thorium dating was first used on fossil
bones in 1956, however, it had been used for
dating wood before this. This dating technique has
been used effectively on marine sediment, bone,
wood, coral, stone and soil. One of the benefits of
uranium-thorium dating is that the sample sizes
can be less than 20 grams, in fact bone samples
can be 3-5 grams for an accurate date
GETTING THE ANSWER RIGHT?