ARCA1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Archaism, Precious Metal, Tephrochronology
31 Jul 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Time: a key consideration in archaeology, age: the date at which something existed, chronology: study of time, allows us to put events in sequence. Concepts of time: archaeologists conceptualise time as linear- everything happening one after another in a line, temporality is how time is experienced. Cultural cycles and concepts of time: past societies may have conceptualised time differently. Mayan cyclical time: mayan calendar consisted of 2 overlapping cycles of time (260 day sacred calendar, 360 day secular calendar, 52 year calendar cycle. Dated historical records/artefacts: details of lives and dates, coins, problems: Importance of chronology: dating is key to organising all archaeological evidence, main goals of archaeology = develop chronological sequence essential for explaining change in the archaeological record. Two main approaches to chronology: relative dating, arranges objects/sites/events in chronological sequence from earliest to latest, does not indicate age in calendar years, absolute (chronometric) dating.
