ANTA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Ardi, Paranthropus Boisei, Oldowan
Document Summary
Ecofacts: natural materials that give environmental information about a site . Land snails (not the coin that would be an artifact! Stratigraphy cross-dating methodological basis: provides a sequence only; i. e no estimates in actual number of years. K/ar, radiocarbon (carbon-14), thermoluminescence (tl) most techniques are radiometric; i. e,. steady decay of radioactive isotope provides estimate in actual number of years. Relative dating: stratigraphy: study of the sequential layering of deposits. Principle of super positioning: lower layers deposited before the upper layers . Archaeological strata: formed by natural and cultural process. Chronometric dating: (gives an age estimate in calendar years) Most techniques make use of radiometric decay: a measure of the rate at which certain. If you have something that human did that"s something from culture radioactive isotopes [slowly breaks down] disintegrate . Examples for dating inorganic materials: potassium- argon (k/ar) method, argon-argon (40ar/39ar) For dating later organic materials: radiocarbon dating carbon -14 (14c) dating.
