Relative dating method in archaeology

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. But this only allows us to arrange the artefacts in the correct time sequence relative to each other.

Chronometric dating has revolutionized archaeology by allowing highly accurate dating of historic artifacts and materials with a range of scientific techniques. Chronometric dating, also known as chronometry or absolute dating, is any archaeological dating method that gives a result in calendar years before the present time. Archaeologists and scientists use absolute dating methods on samples ranging from prehistoric fossils to artifacts from relatively recent history. Chronometric techniques include radiometric dating and radio-carbon dating, which both determine the age of materials through the decay of their radioactive elements; dendrochronology, which dates events and environmental conditions by studying tree growth rings; fluorine testing, which dates bones by calculating their fluorine content; pollen analysis, which identifies the number and type of pollen in a sample to place it in the correct historical period; and thermoluminescence, which dates ceramic materials by measuring their stored energy.

Having an accurate time scale is a crucial aspect of reconstructing how anatomical and behavioral characteristics of early hominids evolved. Relative dating methods allow one to determine if an object is earlier than, later than, or contemporary with some other object. It does not, however, allow one to independently assign an accurate estimation of the age of an object as expressed in years.

This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Despite seeming like a relatively stable place, the Earth's surface has changed dramatically over the past 4. Mountains have been built and eroded, continents and oceans have moved great distances, and the Earth has fluctuated from being extremely cold and almost completely covered with ice to being very warm and ice-free.