ANT200H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Radiocarbon Dating, Relative Dating, Absolute Dating
Document Summary
Surface decorative or stylistic attributes usually shift most rapidly and tend to be the best chronological indicators because they are least affected by functional or technological requirements. Seriation is relative dating method that refers to a variety of techniques that seek to order artifacts in a series of that adjacent members in the series are more similar than members farther apart in the series. Seriation has two basic applications: (1) stylistic seriation and (2) frequency seriation. Flinders petrie at the close of the 19th century. 157-178: this technique allowed petrie to organize the pottery chronologically and, by association, to order the sequence of tombs as well. Petrie"s study also shows that the archaeologist cannot assume that the trend of change always implies progress as our own culture defines that term: frequency seriation orders the sequence of sites or deposits by studying the relative frequencies.
