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What are the two forms of dating?
Relative and absolute.
What is relative dating?
Dating of artifacts or occupation phases in relation to the other. No exact dates
What is absolute dating?
Chronometric dating of artifacts or matrix. Has more exact numbers and is more scientific.
What does chronometric mean?
Measurable assessment of time, independent of relationships.
Who discovered radiocarbon dating?
Willard Libby in 1949
What is the fixed point of âpresent era?â
There is a set date to lessen confusion as more sites are explored.
What is the agreed measure of time?
Years
What is the Christian/Gregorian calendarâs year one?
AD/CE 1
What is the Muslimâs calendar year one?
CE 622. This is when Prophet Gabriel traveled from Mecca to Medina.
What is the Greek calendarâs year one?
776 BCE. This was the first Olympics.
What is the Mayan calendars year one?
3114 BCE. This is found from a sequence on rounds.
What is the Egyptian Calendarâs year one?
Year one began whenever there was a new pharaoh. Canât tell exact dates of reigns.
What is BC?
Before Christ
What is AD
Anno Domini (in the year of the Lord); Birth of Jesus
What is CE?
Common era
What is BCE?
Before common era
What is BP?
Before present. 1950
What is stratigraphy?
Relative dating. Law of superposition. What is older is on the bottom, newer on the top. Build up of layers over time because of natural and cultural formation processes.
How do we number layers?
From oldest to youngest. Oldest=1
What can you number in stratigraphic ordering?
Features with matrix and structures. Not artifacts or eco facts.
What is Bone Dating?
Relative, FUN dating. Nitrogen decay, fluorine uptake, uranium uptake. Measuring concentrations of FUN in bones over time. It will increase over the time (older=more). Environmentally conditional and canât compare to other sites. Also needs water, so is not absolute
What is the Piltdown man?
Charles Dawson faked the âmissing linkâ between primates and homosapiens. Took a human skull and an ape jaw and said he found them as a whole in a gravel pit in Sussex.
What is typology?
Relative dating. John Evans accredited with the idea. Linking like with like or chronological ordering based on changes in shape, style, and technology. Artifacts must have recognizable features and change over time.
What is seriation?
Relative dating. Chronological ordering of assemblages. William Petrie. Uses Evansâ ideas to group artifacts into assemblages.
What is contextual seriation?
Duration and change.
What is frequency seriation?
Proportional abundance or frequency changes. Battle ship curves.
What is linguistic dating?
Relative dating. Change of language over time to track population flows.
What are lexicostatistics?
Changes in vocabulary.
What is glottochronology?
Measuring in year=absolute dating
How can you measure time using ice?
Glacial and Interglacials. When sea levels drop, glaciers rise. Higher levels will have more 18O because it doesnât evaporate as easily as 16O. As water evaporates it can change the amounts of oxygen. A higher level of 18O means it will be older since the 16O has evaporated.
What are foraminifera?
Animals that take up oxygen to make their shells out of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3)
What are ice cores?
Cores of ice with high concentrations of H2O.
What are Saw Tooth curves?
A graph that shows interglacial and ice ages that resembles teeth.
What is pollen dating?
Dating based off pollen zone sequences. Palynologists.
What is faunal dating?
Relative dating by looking for the presence or absence of particular species, or the evolution and adaptations of animals.
What are calendars?
Recording of events following a measurable calendar system. Chronological lists must be complete, calendar must be linkable to ours, and remains must be connected to recorded events.
What is floating chronology?
When an ancient calendar cannot be linked to ours.
What is Terminus Post Quem?
Date after which. Used with coins or other artifacts with absolute dates. Essentially means that the dates of the artifacts found with the coin must be newer than that absolute date in that moment.
What is Terminus Ante Quem?
Date before which. Artifacts must be from before a certain date. Ex. if you found mammoth bones, the site must be from before the mammoth extinction.
What are Varves?
Baron Gerard de Geer. Deposits along lake floors. Sometimes it cannot be linked to archaeological artifacts.
What is dendrochronology?
A.E. Douglass. Tree growth rings that are countable, date able, and have climate connection. Regional, species, and age specific. Must experience seasonal growth and be part of the Master Sequence. Has to be linked to archaeological record and must know length of time between tree death and cultural use.
How old are the European Wetlands?
8000 BCE (10000BP)
How old are Californian Bristlecone Pines?
4900 years (6700 BCE, 8700BP)
What is radiocarbon dating?
Recording the amount of decayed carbon as a means of determining age.
Why does carbon decay?
14C is unstable and will decay back to nitrogen at a fixed rate because of energy like the sun.
What is the half-life of carbon?
5730 years.
How does 14Carbon decay?
When an organism dies, the decay will begin at the half life rate, releasing beta particles. Newer ecofacts will have more beta particles.
How is 14C created and why does it decay back to 14Nitrogen?
Created by cosmic rays entering the atmosphere, colliding with an atom, and creating an energetic neutron. The neutron then collides with 14N to create 14C.
How does 14C enter ecofacts?
Plants absorb CO2, in which some carbon molecules are 14C. Animals then eat plants and absorb the 14C. When the plant or animal dies, the 14C is no longer absorbed.
Why isnât radiocarbon dating completely accurate?
Lab errors, background cosmic radiation, matrix contamination, context
What is standard deviation and what is it for radiocarbon dating?
Standard deviation is the amount of deviation away from the mean the sample may be. One SD is 68% and two SD is 95%.
What must be done to radiocarbon dates before they can be considered accurate?
Calibration using dendrochronology.
What is Radiocarbon AMS?
Radiocarbon accelerator mass spectrometry. Accelerates ions to high kinetic energies before mass analysis so that small samples can be dated.
What is Potassium-Argon dating?
Radioactive potassium is formed when igneous material (basalt, obsidian, etc) is formed. It decays to stables Argon gas.
What is the half life of Potassium Argon dating?
1.25 billion years.
What is argon-argon dating?
Dating of volcanic eruptions and deposits of ash and rock.
What is the half life of argon-argon dating?
269 years.
What is uranium series dating?
The decay of radioactive uranium to lead, through protactinium or thorium.
What is optically stimulated luminescence?
The absorption of radiation into the voids of silt and sand grains after they have been exposed to light.
What is thermoluminescence or TL?
The absorption of radiation into voids of clay after it has been heated to over 500 Celsius.
What is obsidian hydration?
The absorption of water, creating hydration rings in the rock.
What are the rules of Archaeological dating?
Must be site specific depending on remains and matrix
All sites should use stratigraphic dating, requiring proper excavation and recording
Multiple methods used whenever possible, and absolute dating must be used if possible
Dates must be interpreted and are never directly applied to the site
What is social archaeology?
Relationships between groups of people and how they are organized internally and externally, specifically the cultural interaction within the site and at the regional level.
Who is Gordon Childe?
Grouped artifacts into assemblages and groups of assemblages that are similar, associating them with an archaeological culture.
What is an archaeological culture?
Comparing of assemblages between groups.
What two things does social archaeology examine in the archaeological record?
Scale and Nature.
What is scale?
Scale is determined by the largest social unit / archaeological site. This is referred to as Polity.
What is nature?
The type of polity a site is. Ex. hunting site, winter camp, city, etc
What are settlement patterns?
Where polities are located. Focuses on sites as a group.
How do you determine scale?
Survey and consult local population and resources.
What is the Central Place Theory?
Proposed by Walter Christaller in the 1930âs. The idea that if you find the polity (largest site) there will be a consistent spread away from the polity with a diverse size of sites, varying based on commodity acquisition.
What are histograms?
A type of bar graph used to compare number of small sites and large sites.
How do you determine nature?
Assemblages in connection to scale and ethnoarchaeological studies.
What is ethnography?
The study of living cultures.
Who is Elman Service?
Proposed a four-fold classification system: band (hunting/gathering), segmentary or tribe, chiefdom, early state and state. These were based on the scale and nature of sites, but later was abused in a racist way.
What are band societies?
Small scale sites typically with less than 1000 people. Moved seasonally, hunting and gathering, specialized sites, limited structures. All sites before 10000 BP (Holocene) were band sites. Direct connection to land. Large scale resource collection with limited archaeological record due to types of material and group mobility.
What are segmentary societies?
Larger than bands but rarely larger than a few thousand. Horticulturalists, agriculturalists, or pastoralists. Reliance on domesticated plants and animals. Typically multi community. Craft specialization, ceramics, storage of surplus, intensification of food production (plowing, irrigitation, etc), collective works and community activity (cemeteries, public monuments, etc,), egalitarian
What is the settlement patterns of segmentary societies?
Isolated â> dispersed
Grouped â> nucleated (separate) or agglomerated (joined)
No one has dominance over others.
What is an example of segmentary society?
Catal Huyuk.
What is factor or cluster analysis?
Identifying patterns in the archaeological record. Artifacts are single factors, assemblages are clusters.
What is statistical analysis?
The presence or absence of selected variables to identify patterns.
What is Catal Hoyuk?
7200-5400 BCE, excavated by James MEllaart in 1960âs and by Ian Hodder from 1990âs to present.
What are chiefdom societies?
Varying site size, usually from 5k-20k. Reliance on domesticated plants and animals, chief has power of population, social status, lineages graded on prestige, craft specialization, surplus of goods, further intensification of food production, permanent ritual center, no established bureaucracy but some sites may be more important, status linked to lineages (kinship ranking)
What are state societies?
Varying size, usually 20k+. Political century, leader with power to establish and enforce laws, religion separate from rule, economic specialization and efficiency, social classes, hierarchy of sites, separation of polity into activity areas, differences in social status, may have been armies, roads, archives, palaces, etc.
How can relationships of groups be studied?
Exchange of goods, diffusion of people and culure, warfare, competitions (Olympics, Ball Courts, etc), emulation, gender.
These can be studied through written records, burials, art, and more.
Where is Head Smashed in Buffalo site located?
Located where the foothills of the Rocky Mountains begin. Just outside of Fort Macleod
When did Head Smashed in Buffalo site become a heritage site?
1981
What are the components of the Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump?
Gathering basin - 14 KM long grazing area
Drive lanes - piles of rocks that are spaced to funnel the buffalos towards the edge
Kill site - bottom of the cliff
The cliff itself
Camp site and processing area - the are where the buffalos would be skinned and cooked. There is a creek here that would have been important for boiling water. There was a roasting pit excavated in this area
What is the meaning behind the name Head Smashed in?
Traditional story is that a man was too young to join the hunt, but he wanted to see what happens when the bison are driven off the edge. So he went and hid beneath the ledge to watch, but the hunt ended up being successful and many bison fell off, to the point where the young man was buried by them. Then when the hunters went to get the carcasses they dug the man out and his head was smashed in
What is the stratigraphy of the Head Smashed in kill site?
Mummy Cave (7500-4500 BP). Square base projectile points
Pelican Lake (3600-2800/2100 BP) Projectile points look like Christmas trees
Avonlea (1350-1100 BP) Arrow points - large scale hunting during this period
Old Womenâs Phase (1100 - 250 BP) Many types of projectile pointsÂ
What is the Majorville Medicine Wheel? What type of wheel is it, how old is it and where is it located?
The Majorville wheel is a historical landmark located south of Bassano. It has been in use for 5200 years - it was dated by the artifacts that were found at the bottom of the karen when half of the wheel was excavated.
What is a karen?
the pile of rocks found in the middle of a medicine wheel
Where are medicine wheels typically located
On the highest point of the landscape
Who came up with the classifications of Medicine wheels
John Brumley came up with the 8 types of wheels
Where is the sundial medicine wheel located?
East of Carmangay
How was the sundial dated? What was found out from this?
Through the study of lichen - the dial was never excavated. Instead, they mapped and looked at the lichen to relatively date how long the rocks have been there. They found out that the outer ring was constructed first and then the inner ring and entrance was constructed later
What type of wheel is the sundial?
Type two - it has a central ring, outer ring, entrance and karen
What type of wheel is the Majorville wheel?
Type two - it has a karen with 26-28 spokes coming out of it, and is then enclosed by an outer ring
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