ANTH 204 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Terminus Post Quem, Speleothem, Wurm
Document Summary
The idea that something is older (or younger) relative to something else is the basis of relative dating. Wanting to know the age in years before the present of different events or parts of a sequence- we need methods of absolute dating. Absolute dating helps us see how quickly changes occur (introduction to agriculture. ) The only reliable absolute date (before the last 60 years) was the date of the reign of ancient egyptian pharaoh tutankhamun. Some dating methods still rely on the passage of seasons. Ad (cid:894)a(cid:374)(cid:374)o do(cid:373)i(cid:374)i(cid:895) = lati(cid:374) fo(cid:396) (cid:862)i(cid:374) the yea(cid:396) of ou(cid:396) lo(cid:396)d. Muslims= important date was the departure of the prophet in 622 ad. (in the christian calendar) Scientists who want to derive dates from radioactive methods want a neutral international system, chosen to count years back from the present (bp) Paleolithic period: stretches back 2-3 million years, archaeologists use the terms bp and years ago interchangeably.
