Seriation Dating Essay
Seriation can be defined as a comparative dating method in which artifacts from several sites, of the same archaeological culture, are arranged in chronological order. Seriation is a method that helps archaeologists to date sites relatively. It is used to date pottery fragments, stone tools together with other artifacts.
Objectives of the Lab Report
The objectives of this report include helping in determining the occupation sequence of the eight sites located on the provided map of an island. Another objective is identifying the order of occupation of the eight sites of the island from the first site to the last site.
Samples/materials
A set of potsherds gathered from the eight sites of the island. The potsherds were of different colors namely purple, white, light green, red, blue and dark green. Provisions of graphing paper, tape, and scissors were made available to help in the recording of the frequencies of the potsherds.
Methods
My teammates and I decided to use the seriation method which works with numbers. We recorded the number of potsherds of each type that are found on each of our sites, playing around with them to develop the order of occupation. Each site had a different number of potsherd types. The choice of our method was that numbers are easy to work with mostly when patterns of descending or ascending order are concerned. We encountered a problem once when we were filling in details of the potsherds found in the sites in our table. A typing error proved to give a very different result than the expected.
My team arranged the table until it was complete and we came up with an order of occupation of the eight sites as follows; A, E, G, C, B, F, D, H. Overlapping in time occurs in phases I and II. Sites H and D, B and C overlap in time while sites A, E, G, F do not overlap in time. When one looks at the map, there is an obvious settlement pattern as settlements move from the exterior towards the interior.
If the clue (15) were not provided, my teammates and I would still be able to determine which site was the earliest and which one was the latest by counting the sherds just like for all other sites’ phases. In the real world, several clues exist which are used by archaeologists to determine the location of archaeological sites. Such clues include surveying areas, remote sensing, pilots who find archaeologic locations notify archeologists.
If I had a small budget covering only three sites, I would study sites A, B and H. These 3 sites would help me get the information about the region’s chronology as they are starting point, middle and end point of our occupation pattern. The time frame of the occupation period majorly lies on the earliest and latest sites. If I did this, I still would not get to know approximately when some sites were occupied.
In the real world archeological context, some problems arise when trying to produce a usable seriation table. These problems may include the fact that seriation is done on groups of artifacts of the same culture and therefore seriation cannot work due to the fact that the frequency of these artifacts is mixed up with those of other cultures. The frequency of artifacts of different cultures means that battleship curve patterns will not be produced. Seriation would be different if one followed artifacts style of design since design can remain unchanged through time. For instance, the shape of an arrow can remain the unvaried for a long time and we should use other qualities such as color and material type to determine seriation.
