Exam 4: Dating Methods and Chronology

Which dating technique would yield a result that might read 2.25 million years before present,plus or minus 50,000 years?

Traditionally,radiocarbon dating techniques required approximately 10-20 grams of wood or charcoal.A few radiocarbon laboratories using the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS)are now able to work with samples as small as 5-10 milligrams.

One of the major drawbacks of tree-ring dating is that the date recorded corresponds to the felling of the tree,thus

Scientists have come to recognize that fluctuations in climate during the Ice Age were far less complex than originally thought;indeed,the Ice Age was just one long unbroken spell of cold with little temperature fluctuation.

Very briefly,identify and define three different relative dating techniques.

In the Christian calendar (which uses the terms BC and AD),there is no year

Through seriation,assemblages of artifacts are arranged in serial order,which is taken to indicate

Some scholars prefer the term BCE to the term BC when talking about calendar dates because BC,which means Before Christ,is not necessarily meaningful in areas with other calendars or religions.What does BCE stand for?

Although the creation of a typology may enable an archaeologist to understand gradual changes in design or decoration,to discover exactly when these changes occurred archaeologists must employ

The most coherent record of climate change on a global scale is obtained through

A key point in archaeology is the idea of association.For example,if objects are found in the same,sealed,archaeological deposit,it is probable that they were buried at the same time.If one of these objects can later be given an absolute date,then it is possible to assign that absolute date to the sealed deposit and the other objects associated with it as well.

The presence of foreign pottery in a well-dated Egyptian context shows that this type of pottery cannot be more recent than those Egyptian objects.This type of cross-dating establishes a__________ for the manufacture of the foreign pottery

Based on recent DNA evidence,it is clear that Homo sapiens did not evolve in Africa.

Radiocarbon dating methods can only be used on

The typological idea that change in artifact style is gradual over time is associated with Darwin's theory of evolution.

Assumptions about genetic mutation rates stemming from the study of samples taken from living people is the basis of

Palynologists study ____________ which,when found preserved in lake or bog sediments,allows them to understand both ancient environments and to use them as a method of ________________ dating

The time taken for half of the atoms of a radioactive isotope to decay is called its

Discuss the method of radiocarbon dating.Address the following three questions within your essay: What does the method measure? What are the underlying assumptions of radiocarbon dating? What are the limitations of the method?

__________ are complex sequences of cold periods that occurred during the Ice Age and are visible in ice cores