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LoginSigning up enhances your TCE experience with the ability to save items to your personal reading list, and access the interactive map. Published Online January 23, Last Edited March 4, For those researchers working in the field of human history, the chronology of events remains a major element of reflection. Archaeologists have access to various techniques for dating archaeological sites or the objects found on those sites. There are two main categories of dating methods in archaeology : indirect or relative dating and absolute dating. Relative dating includes methods that rely on the analysis of comparative data or the context eg, geological, regional, cultural in which the object one wishes to date is found. This approach helps to order events chronologically but it does not provide the absolute age of an object expressed in years.
Not sure what you're looking for? Browse the A-Z index. Archaeologists have two main ways to tell the age of sites and artifacts. Relative dating tells how old something is in relation to other objects, but cannot provide a year or specific date of use. In contrast, absolute dating provides a specific calendar year for the occupation of a site.
The oldest and most widely used dating method in archaeology is typological dating. An artefact is dated on the basis of knowledge about the age of other similar artefacts. When you have seen a sufficient number of cars, you can easily see that a Volkswagen Golf is more recent than a Beetle — and that the Golf looks like other cars of the same period. The same applies to archaeological artefacts.
All of us tend to use the most significant dates in our lives as reference points for all the others. For example, we think of our age in reference to the year we were born, and while we may give names to wedding anniversaries silver, gold, etc. Just as important years are widely used reference points in the lives of individuals, so they are for entire cultures. And they often vary from culture to culture. Although it is today in the United States, such a number might indicate a far different year in other cultures throughout history.
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6/28/2024
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