Homework 3 – ANT 2511
1. (KA4) How does knowledge from the scientific disciplines of
chemistry and physics help anthropologists determine the age of
the things they study? Make sure to give two specific and distinct
examples. (5 points)
One of the most important things anthropologists do is dating certain
objects, artifacts, or fossils. In order to do that, they can use knowledge from
the scientific disciplines of chemistry and physics.
2. (KA1) Say you discover a nice ceramic cooking pot in an
archaeological site you are excavating. Your previous research has
shown that pots like this were used to boil wild grains into a kind of
porridge, and the outside of the pot has so much soot and scorching
on it that you know it must have been placed over a hot fire. If you
wanted to know how long ago the pot was last used by the people
who made it, which chronometric dating method would be
appropriate, and why? (5 points)
3. (KA1) Say the chronometric dating method you used to date the
cooking pot in Question 2 above revealed that it was last used
about 1,400 years ago. With that in mind, how might you use
stratigraphy and the Law of Superposition to obtain a relative date
for the animal bones you found in the layer of dirt above the pot,
and the arrowhead you found in the layer of dirt beneath it? (5
points)
4. (IE3) Why would it be useful to use Potassium-argon (K-Ar)
dating to determine the age of a human skeleton that is millions of
years old and was recovered from a site in a volcanic region of
Africa? Why would it NOT be useful to use Potassium-argon (K-Ar)
dating to determine the age of a human skeleton that is hundreds of
years old and was recovered from a site near Orlando? Which
chronometric dating method(s) might be better for determining the
age of the Orlando material, and why? (5 points)
5. (KA4) In your own words, explain why it is important that people
today know WHEN important human events happened in the past.
(5 points)
It is very important for anthropologists to date a certain object. That way,
they can interpret the evolution of species and artifacts
