Module 2

Question 1

What is scientific dating method?

Answer 1

Assist pale anthropologists and archaeologists in their work.

1) Relative dating methods
2) Numerical or absolute dating methods

Question 2

What is Relative dating methods?

Answer 2

Indicates which objects are older or younger in a linear sequence.

• Does not give use exact times
  1) Stratigraphic superposition
  2) Biostratigraphic dating
  3) Seriation

Question 3

What is Stratigraphic superposition?

Answer 3

Relies on the ordering of strata, or layers of rock and soil

Question 4

What is Law of Superposition?

Answer 4

A principle of geological interpretation states that layers lower down in a sequence of strata must be older than the layers above them.

Question 5

What is Biostratigraphic dating?

Answer 5

Uses the fossils of widespread or rapidly evolving species to fate the relative age of other fossils associated with them

Question 6

What is Seriation?

Answer 6

Based on the assumptions that artifacts that look alike must have been made at the same time and differences in appearance of quantity can be ordered in a linear sequence.

Question 7

What is contextual seriation?

Answer 7

Based on changes in artifact styles

Question 8

How can pottery be helpful?

Answer 8

Can be successfully dated using seriation because its stylistic features are visible and highly modifiable

Question 9

What is frequency seriation?

Answer 9

relies on comparing artifacts percentages from different assemblages

Question 10

What are assemblages?

Answer 10

Are artifacts and structures from a particular time and place in an archaeological site.

Question 11

What is Numerical Dating Methods?

Answer 11

Also called absolute dating methods, assign a calendar age to a material object and Include:
Isotopic dating methods
Non-isotopic dating methods

Question 12

What is Isotopic Dating Methods?

Answer 12

Are based on the rate at which various radioactive isotopes transform themselves in to other elements by losing subatomic particles (the rate of decay)

Question 13

What is Non-isotopic dating methods?

Answer 13

Assign ages in years to material evidence but not by using rate of nuclear decay

Question 14

What is dendrochonology?

Answer 14

A non-isotopic dating method used to date trees call “tree-ring” dating

Question 15

What is Climate Data

Answer 15

Reconstruct selective pressures under which past nonhuman primate and human population would have lived

Question 16

What is core drilled?

Answer 16

Drills into glaciers or the ocean floor provide dated information on past climates