Sequence dating, an archaeological

relative dating Relative dating is the science of determining the relative order of past events (i.e., the age of an object in comparison to another), without necessarily determining their absolute age (i.e., estimated age). In geology, rock or superficial dep ...

method, allows assemblages to be arranged in a rough serial order, which is then taken to indicate time. Sequence dating is a method of seriation developed by the

Egyptologist Egyptology (from ''Egypt'' and Greek , '' -logia''; ar, علم المصريات) is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, architecture and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religiou ...

Sir

William Matthew Flinders Petrie Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...

. By linking styles of

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...

with different time periods, he was able to establish the relative chronology of the site. Sir Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) was the first to use seriation in Egyptology. Sir Flinders Petrie, the younger contemporary of archaeologist

Augustus Pitt Rivers Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (14 April 18274 May 1900) was an English officer in the British Army, ethnologist, and archaeologist. He was noted for innovations in archaeological methodology, and in the museum display ...

, was meticulous in his excavations and recorded every artifact and detail on site. From his work, Petrie was able to bring chronological order to 2,200 pit graves of the Naqada cemetery in Upper Egypt. The sequence dating method allowed the relative date, if not the absolute date, of any given

Predynastic Egypt Prehistoric Egypt and Predynastic Egypt span the period from the earliest human settlement to the beginning of the Early Dynastic Period around 3100 BC, starting with the first Pharaoh, Narmer for some Egyptologists, Hor-Aha for others, with ...

site to be ascertained by examining the handles on pottery, general form of the piece, and the stratigraphic layer it was found in. As more evidence of the predynastic period is uncovered, this dating method in relation to the pottery on site aids in determining the relative date of the site.

Types of seriation

Contextual seriation

Contextual seriation, which was developed by Flinders Petrie, created sequences of assemblages and arranged them in what he thought was their chronological order based on the inventory of grave contents, his work in Egypt proved this to be a generally true reflection of their chronological sequences.

Frequency seriation

Frequency seriation measures changes in abundance of a certain ceramic style. This technique was developed in a pioneering paper by W.S. Robinson and G.W. Brainerd, published in 1951. It was created because of artifacts in Mayan sites that had been recovered in the 1940s without stratigraphic context. The assumption was that certain styles of pottery were popular in certain times, and during that time, the popularity would reach a peak and then fade away. So, if a similar style of pottery was found at a different site, they must be from around the same time period.

Development

The European strategy would eventually make its way into Americanist archaeology during the late 19th century, but it would not be until the second decade of the 20th century that sequence and detail became a part and parcel of archaeology method. Sequence dating has been deemed an obsolete and inaccurate method of dating archaeological sites and artifacts, since archaeologists have discovered more precise methods of dating archaeological sites and artifacts.

References

{{reflist Dating methodologies in archaeology Prehistoric Egypt

Types of seriation

Contextual seriation

Frequency seriation

Development

See also

References