METHODS OF DATING IN ARCHAEOLOGY
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- MARCO ZANATTA
- 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 the scientific method.
The time and its measurement.
Measurement and uncertainty
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-living 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).
