Sequence dating
Sequence dating, an archaeological
Sir Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) was the first to use seriation in Egyptology. Sir Flinders Petrie, the younger contemporary of archaeologist Augustus Pitt Rivers, was meticulous in his excavations and recorded every artifact and detail on site. From his work, Petrie was able to bring chronological order to 2,200 pit graves of the Naqada cemetery in Upper Egypt.
The sequence dating method allowed the relative date, if not the absolute date, of any given
Types of seriation
Contextual seriation
Contextual seriation, which was developed by Flinders Petrie, created sequences of assemblages and arranged them in what he thought was their chronological order based on the inventory of grave contents, his work in Egypt proved this to be a generally true reflection of their chronological sequences.[1]
Frequency seriation
Frequency seriation measures changes in abundance of a certain ceramic style. This technique was developed in a pioneering paper by W.S. Robinson and G.W. Brainerd, published in 1951. It was created because of artifacts in Mayan sites that had been recovered in the 1940s without stratigraphic context. The assumption was that certain styles of pottery were popular in certain times, and during that time, the popularity would reach a peak and then fade away. So, if a similar style of pottery was found at a different site, they must be from around the same time period.[1]
Development
The European strategy would eventually make its way into Americanist archaeology during the late 19th century, but it would not be until the second decade of the 20th century that sequence and detail became a part and parcel of archaeology method.[2] Sequence dating has been deemed an obsolete[dubious ] and inaccurate method of dating archaeological sites and artifacts, since archaeologists have discovered more precise methods of dating archaeological sites and artifacts.[citation needed]
See also
- Archaeological association– Glossary for archaeological terms
- Archaeological context
- Archaeological phase– highly localized and chronologically restricted cultural unit
- Excavation
- Harris matrix
- Law of superposition – In undeformed stratigraphic sequences, the oldest strata will be at the bottom of the sequence
References
- ^ ISBN 9780500287132.
- ISBN 9780306461521.