Archaeology Flash Cards

Question 1

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) dating

Answer 1

Type of radiocarbon dating
Traditional radiocarbon dating: the amount of carbon-14 left in a sample is measured indirectly by the amount of radioactivity the sample gives off.
In ASM dating, the amount of carbon 14 left in a sample is measured directly by an actual count of atoms.

Question 2

Ancestral Puebloan

Answer 2

Or called Anasazi

Prehistoric culture centered in the 4 corners region of the American Southwest

Question 3

Archaic

Answer 3

a period of time in the New World that follows the Paleoindian period. The Archaic begins at the end of the Pleistocene and represents a period of cultural adaptation to the new, postglacial environment by FN

Question 4

Argon/Argon Dating

Answer 4

Absolute dating method based on the decay of radioactive potassium to stable argon gas. Argon-argon dating is an updated and more accurate version of potassium-argon dating. Potassium is abundant in rock and is usually applied in the dating of rock strata. Because of the long half-life of radioactive potassium, there is no upper chronological limit to the application technique.