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Archaeology And Relative Dating Analysis

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Throughout the past two centuries, archaeology has undergone a series of evolutionary changes in methodology. Archaeological methods help archaeologists uncover sites of ancient civilizations and accurately analyze them. Three commonly used methods are research design, patterning, and dating. These techniques are particularly known for their application in famous sites of excavation such as Schliemann’s unearthing of ancient Troy, Carter’s search for King Tut, and Kenneth Feder’s analyzation of the prehistoric site of Wood Lily. The methods themselves, as used by these archaeologists, show the chronology of the progress of archaeology and its techniques. The preliminary course of action before a survey or excavation can take place is called …show more content…

There are two types of dating: relative dating and chronometric. Relative dating places artifacts, features or sites into a sequence determined by analyzing stylistic changes found in different layers of stata. It is of course, relative, which means there is no exact dating. Stratigraphy is a relative dating technique that is most helpful when comparing the age of sites, (to determine which one is older), or artifacts, as the stylistic changes can help conclude which era they belonged to and possibly even which culture. The second type of dating, chronometric, is a bit more specific and can provide exact dates according to a calendar or a range of years for artifacts, features, sites and/or ecofacts. By far the most accurate chronometric dating method is dendrochronology, which determines the exact year a tree was cut down by analyzing patterns of tree rings within a master sequence. Additionally, within chronometric dating, there are radiometric dating methods such as carbon dating. It is based on radioactive decay, which occurs at a constant and measurable rate, making it a great natural clock. Heinrich Schliemann (a merchant, not an archaeologist) loosely used relative dating in his search for Homer’s Troy in the 1870’s. He had enough knowledge of strata to understand that in order to find Troy, he would have to excavate several layers of strata within the area he deduced to be the previous location of Troy. He used relative dating, stratigraphy specifically, to count the layers before he reached Troy, however, his dating was very off, so using dynamite to get through the layers, he bombed nine levels of history, one of which today is presumed to be the actual level of Troy. Had he spent more time on research design or patterning, maybe collected samples of several stratums he would’ve uncovered that Troy was not as low as he had

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