METHODS OF DATING IN ARCHAEOLOGY
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2021/2022
- Teacher
- STEFANO GIALANELLA
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- FIS/01
Training objectives
- To acquire the knowledge for an aware use of the main scientific dating techniques interesting for archaeological applications.
Prerequisites
- Basic knowledge in chemistry, physics and maths, that, if necessary, will be recalled under students’ request during the course.
Course programme
- General Aspects of Scientific Dating
Radiocarbon Dating
Basic Principles. Experimental aspects: Beta Counting and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS). Possible sources of error. Calibration of the Radiocarbon timescale. Applications and practical recommendations
Other Dating Techniques Based on Long- and Short-Lived Radioactive Isotopes
- Principles of Potassium-Argon and Argon-Argon Dating. Critical aspects and applications
- Principles of U-Series Dating. Applications
- Dating with short-lived isotopes: Lead-210; Caesium-137; Silicon-32.. Applications.
Radiation Exposure Dating
- Themoluminescence (TL) and Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL). Applications and limits.
- Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) dating: principles and applications
- Fission Track dating: principles and applications
Dating Techniques Based on Annually Banded Records
- Climatic clocks and climate based frameworks
- Dendrochronology. General principles. Dendrochronological series. Applications
- Varve chronology and its applications
- Annual Layers in Glacier Ice. Ice-core chronologies and relevant issues. Applications of ice-core dating.
- Dating based on: speleothems, corals, molluscs, lichens.
Other (Relative) Dating Methods
- Amino acid racemization. General aspects. Amino acid diagenesis. Applications
- Obsidian hydration dating. The hydration layer. Applications.
- The rehydroxylation of fired clay ceramics: a new dating method…!?
- Magnetic dating. Introduction. The Earth magnetic field and its variations. Recording mechanisms. Applications.
Epilogue: The Problem of Establishing Age Equivalence Didactic methods
- Oral lectures (30 h) each followed by open discussions. The lessons are video-broadcast in the classrooms of the four partner Universities equipped with web-conference video and audio facilities. A remote access is also available to off-site students. Full recordings of all lectures are available under request @unife.it.
Learning assessment procedures
- Oral exam.
Reference texts
- M. Walker, Quaternary Dating Methods. J. Wiley & Sons Ltd (2005)
M. J. Aitken, Science-based Dating in Archeology. Longman, London and New York (1990).
G. Artioli, Scientific Methods and Cultural Heritage, Oxford University Press (2010).
Lecture Notes.