NOT ABOUT DATING

UNDER THE POTTER’S TREE Studies on Ancient Egypt Presented to Janine Bourriau on the Occasion of her 70th Birthday, 2011

Overview of Egyptian pottery from the perspective of petrographic and chemical studies as of 2011.

1956

Responsible cultural resource management (CRM) is a challenging enterprise. Our commitments are numerous and diverse: not only must we deliver a product to our client, but we must also uphold Ministry standards, operate within budget, contribute to a viable commercial venture, deliver quality research, and present that research in a timely and concise manner, all while keeping an eye to both past and future contracts. With all these responsibilities, it is perhaps understandable that many of our sites are not subjected to a more intense research. Particularistic information is paramount—how many, what kind, where was it found?—while in-depth interpretation of the assemblage is limited. This in-depth analysis, which places the “how many, what kind” information into real social context, is exactly the type of information that would make our work more relevant to the broader discipline of anthropological archaeology. Certainly the issue is not the lack of serious, research-minded archa...

Transdisciplinarity Integrated Science (IS, volume 5), 2022

When Willard F. Libby first discovered radiocarbon dating in 1947, archaeologists, and especially Egyptologists, ignored it. They questioned its reliability, as it did not coincide with the "known" historical dates of the artifacts being tested. David Wilson, author of The New Archaeology, wrote, "Some archaeologists refused to accept radiocarbon dating. The attitude of the majority, probably, in the early days of the new technique was summed up by Professor Jo Brew, Director of the Peabody Museum at Harvard. 'If a C14 date supports our theories, we put it in the main text. If it does not entirely contradict them, we put it in a footnote. And if it is completely out-of-date we just drop it.

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2013

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Radiocarbon, 2017

ABSTRACTRadiocarbon dating has had profound implications for archaeological understanding. These have been identified as various “revolutions,” with the latest—Bayesian chronological statistical analyses of large datasets—hailed as a “revolution in understanding.” This paper argues that the full implications of radiocarbon (14C) data and interpretation on archaeological theory have yet to be recognized, and it suggests that responses in Britain to earlier revolutions in archaeological understanding offer salutary lessons for contemporary archaeological practice. This paper draws on the work of David Clarke and Colin Renfrew to emphasize the importance of critical considerations of the relationships between archaeological theory and scientific method, and to emphasize that seemingly neutral aspects of archaeological thought are highly laden interpretatively, and have significant implications for the kinds of archaeology that we write.

Society for Archaeological Sciences Bulletin, 2001

2006

Luminescence signals from naturally occurring minerals have been used over the last forty years for dating both heated materials and unheated sediments. Thermoluminescence (TL) is the most widespread used method for dating heated materials in general (Aitken M.J.,1985) and especially archaeological artifacts like ceramics (Zimmerman D.W.,1971), while Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) is used mostly for dating geological sediments (Aitken M.J.,1998). The major difference between the two methods is the zero-setting mechanism of the luminescence clock. In the case of sediments the luminescence was bleached during the exposure of the mineral grains to daylight during sediment transport and deposition. In the case of heated materials and especially ceramics, the luminescence signal was extinguished by the firing of the pottery. Various techniques and laboratory procedures have been developed for the application of the above methods. The most commonly used technique for dating pottery, using TL is the ‘fine grain’ (FG) technique (Zimmerman D.W.,1971) while for OSL dating the preferred method is the one prescribed in the ‘single-aliquot regenerativedose’ (SAR) protocol (Aitken .J.,1998). The FG technique in TL dating, however, requires relatively large sample sizes and is limited to well-fired samples. The OSL techniques, on the other hand, usually demand smaller samples and give a higher age precision but so far these techniques have been mainly restricted to sediments. The present work investigates the use of the above TL and OSL dating techniques for the age determination of ‘well’ and ‘not-well’ fired ancient ceramic materials of known age. The results obtained are compared on the bases of accuracy, age precision and applicability.

Archaeometry, 2003

in 1984, and hosted two meetings dedicated to the approach in 1980 and 1987, which were published in key edited volumes and Middleton and Freestone (1991). A natural next step was to form a group to bring together researchers applying ceramic petrology in order to share ideas and experience.

Quaternary Geochronology, 2016

Physique Appliquée à l'Archéologie (CRP2A), Maison de l'archéologie, 33607 Pessac cedex In the note "A response to some unwarranted criticisms of single-grain dating" Feathers raises many issues with both the approach and the conclusions of Thomsen et al. (2016). After careful consideration, we find we disagree with Feather's analysis and conclusions, and stand by the original conclusions of Thomsen et al. (2016). We reiterate that, for these samples, the multi-grain measurements are demonstrably in better agreement with the independent age control than are the standard single-grain measurements. In our view, Feathers' most important criticisms are that the 14 C age control is reported incorrectly and that Thomsen et al. (2016) cannot conclude that standard single-grain methods are in poorer agreement with the independent age control than the multi-grain methods. We acknowledge the presence of a minor presentation error in Figure 3 of Thomsen et al. (2016), but we demonstrate that this detail has no bearing on the conclusions of Thomsen et al. (2016). We respond below in detail to the main issues raised by Feathers. We have retained his structure for ease of cross-comparison.

Springer eBooks, 2020

Calendar [calibrated] age (cal BC years) Calendar [calibrated] age (cal BC years) Radiocarbon age ( 14 C years BP) Radiocarbon age ( 14 C years BP) Radiocarbon Dating in Archaeology, Fig. 4 (a) Plot of calibrated 14 C values of 2300AE15 BP employing Calib 7.0 calibration protocol (Stuiver and Reimer 1993) and IntCal13 data (Reimer et al. 2013). The dark zones in the areas under the curves representing the 14 C BP values and the calibrated span are 1s ranges while the lighter portions are the 2s ranges (Source: Taken from Taylor and Bar-Yosef 2014: Fig. 5.9). (b) Plot of calibrated 14 C values of 2400AE15 BP employing Calib 7.0 calibration protocol (Stuiver and Reimer 1993) and IntCal13 data (Reimer et al. 2013). The dark zones in the areas under the curves representing the 14 C BP values and the calibrated span are 1s ranges while the lighter portions are the 2s ranges (Source: Taken from Taylor and Bar-Yosef 2014: Fig. 5.10) Radiocarbon Dating in Archaeology 9059 unless they are directly or indirectly related to some stratigraphic sequence. The value of the laboratory results is enhanced by critical evaluation by other scientists. Most particularly, the reverse is true. This involves continual examination of all basic theory and hypotheses by everyone concerned. The future value and usefulness of the method depends in large measure upon the success of continued collaboration between physicists, archaeologists, geologists, botanists, and others" (Johnson et al. 1951: 62). This injunction assumed an even greater significance with the introduction of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) technology for 14 C measurements. AMS methods permit analyses to be conducted on microgram amounts of organics and opens up the possibility of extending the 14 C dating range. For archaeologists and Quaternary geologists, the utilization of submilligram-size samples will require an even more rigorous attention to the evaluation of geological, geochemical, and archaeological contexts of samples. The need for interdisciplinary cooperation and collaboration will become even more critical as AMS technology assumes an ever increasing role in the 14 C measurements of archaeological and other terminal Late Quaternary paleoenvironmental and paleoecological materials (Pollard 2009).

Archaeometry, 2001

KIVA, 1994

Mean ceramic dating is a technique developed in historical archaeology to date Euroamerican ceramic assemblages. Previous uses of the method on prehistoric sites in the Southwest have not been conclusive because of the lack of independent dates to assess the results. Tree-ring-dated ceramic assemblages from the Kayenta Anasazi area are used to test the technique. Confidence intervals calculated from these results indicate that the mean ceramic dating is usually as accurate as, or more accurate than, radiocarbon or archaeomagnetic dating and can approach tree-ring dating in accuracy in the A.D. 1100-1300 period. RESUMEN La mediana obtenida de Ia dataci6n de tipos ceramicos, es una tecnica desarrollada par Ia arqueo/ogfa hist6rica para datar conjuntos ceramicos Euroamericanos. Los usos previos de este metoda en sitios prehispanicos del Suroeste no han sido decisivos debido a Ia falta de fee has independientes para evaluar los resultados. Con elfin de probar est a ticnica se uti/izaron complejos ceramicos fechados por media de ani/los de los arboles del area Kayenta Anazasi. Confiables imerva/os ca/culados de estos resultados, indican que Ia mediana que se obtuvo de Ia dataci6n ceramica es tar o mas precisa que el fechamiento obtenido par radiocarbono o arqueomagnetismo y su exactitud puede aproximarse a las fee has obtenidas de los ani/los de arboles que apuntan a/ perfodo comprendido entre los a nos 1100 y 1300 d.c.

Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2017

One of the most common undertakings in archaeology is to establish absolute temporal sequences of artifacts. Once such tasks are completed, items become index fossils that serve to inform on chronology often in the absence of absolute dates. While such chronologies are best constructed through the direct dating of the items in question, this is too rarely the case. In contrast, various associations are made between the objects and dated organic materials. Change is often then seen as being abrupt, with important consequences for archaeological interpretation. Here we use optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating to directly examine this issue with a case study involving the timing of Anderson-style and Madisonville-style pottery, two of the main styles of Fort Ancient pottery that are seen as reliably separating later (after 1400 CE) from earlier periods (ca. 1000-1400 CE). This temporal distinction is best expressed by the common designation of sites with both pottery styles as being temporally multicomponent. However, it has been noted by some researchers that these styles may overlap to a significant degree, based on associated radiocarbon dates. Our findings confirm this suspicion, with direct evidence through OSL dating with samples from the Hahn site.

2003

In the early days, archaeologists try ing tomake age determinations often dependedon information supplied by others. Principally, they relied on histo rians, who knew the chronologies of literate societies of the past five millen nia, with their written inscriptions on seals, records, tombs, monuments and coins. Archaeologistsalso relied on ge ologists, who could sometimes make age determinations basedon the asso ciation of human remains with geolog ical features of known age.