It’s All Relative: Archaeology as an Early 20th Century Profession

By Joel Wodhams

Imagine that you are an archaeologist working shortly after the First World War. It’s your first excavation, and you have found small fragment of pottery. What questions would you ask?

Was one of your questions “how old is it”? This is a core question that can be tricky to answer. From 1914 to 1940, archaeologists refined stratigraphy, seriation, and typology in an effort to better understand the age of an object, and of the site as a whole. Read more

Sir William Flinders Petrie

Sir William Mathews Flinders Petrie was responsible for making archaeology the scientific discipline it is today.

Archaeology in popular media is frequently portrayed as a treasure hunt. Many popular characters perpetuate this image, perhaps most famously Indiana Jones, a professor of archaeology who travels the globe in search of precious artifacts, which he obtains by any means necessary, and at anyone’s expense, with little regard for context beyond the value of the object. Although this is a misleading image of archaeology today, in its early years the discipline really was more like treasure hunting than science. Sir William Mathews Flinders Petrie was the man responsible for taking the first steps towards making archaeology the scientific discipline it is today. Read more

How Archaeologists Get a Date

How Archaeologists Get a Date
A Valentine’s Day blog post

Archaeologists like to use several dating methods to find out more about artifacts. It all depends on what the object is, where the archaeologist is located (what resources he/she has access to), and how old the artifact appears to be.

What is eligible for dating?
Not every artifact is eligible for all dating methods; for example, an artifact must be made from a carbon-based material to use radiocarbon dating (stone, for example doesn’t have carbon). A stone artifact can be dated based on the way it looks and/or the way it was made. Over many years of research chronologies of stone tools (and pottery) have been built, based on styles (called Seriation).

Archaeologists can also be matchmakers by using the context, which is the where, when and how an artifact is found. In the end, archaeologists often use a few different methods on an group of artifacts found together to come up with a reasonable date.

CarbonDating - How Archaeologists Get a Date