Anth 140 Summer 2007

Lab 2: Archaeological Dating Methods

Name: ID:

Station 1: Carbon-14 Dating

Using the picture below and the handout,

please answer the following questions:

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Anth 140 Summer 2007

Half Life / Approx. % Remaining
0 / 100%
1 / 50%
2 / 25%
3 / 12.5%
4 / 6.25%
5 / 3.13%
6 / 1.56%
7 / .78%
8 / .39%
9 / .2%
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Using the chart below and the handout, please answer the following questions:

8. Using the calculator function on the lab computers to help you, please manually calculate how old an artifact is if you had 30 percent carbon-14 remaining compared to a living sample (use the example calculation from the handout to help you).

Using one of the lab computers and the website http://www.101science.com/Carbon14.htm , please answer the following questions:

9. How much Carbon-14 is left after 5,500 years have passed? (type in the number of years and click on Calculate).

10. How many years have elapsed if your sample still contains 40% Carbon-14? (type in the

C-14 percent and click on Calculate).

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Anth 140 Summer 2007

Station 2: Seriation

Using seriation (i.e. the principal of battleship curves), please arrange the 10 strips of paper with ceramic vessels in their relative chronological order and answer the questions below. Note that the strips of paper all align evenly and you are placing the sites in the order that they occurred, from top to bottom. Make sure each pottery style approximates a battleship curve. Please ask us if you have any questions!!!

11. Record the chronological order of the pottery using the site numbers provided.

(i.e. 3, 2, 7, 5, etc).

12. What other artifacts besides pottery could be used to create chronologies using seriation? Why?

Station 3: Dendrochronology

13. Suppose the piece of wood illustrated here comes from the foundation of a historic, undated building. Using the master sequence represented below, what is the earliest date that the building could have been constructed?

14. Using what you know about dendrochronology and carbon-14 from the handouts, please explain what the benefits and drawbacks of using dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating are for determining accurate dates.

Station 4: Dating techniques

Station 4 consists of different artifacts which can be dated through various techniques. Please use the “dating techniques” handout to determine which techniques are the most appropriate for dating the various artifacts. Please choose 3 different artifacts and list the dating technique that is best suited for each artifact. If multiple dating techniques exist, please list them all. For each artifact please also list the strengths and limitations of each technique.

15. Artifact 1:______

Appropriate dating technique(s):

Strengths/Limitations:

16. Artifact 2:______

Appropriate dating technique(s):

Strengths/Limitations:

17. Artifact 3:______

Appropriate dating technique(s):

Strengths/Limitations:

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