Oh thats a shame..........

[Jack]

what is this crazy talk - typology has never been used as a means of dating

See ERA 11, Rigby, V. (2004) ?Pots in Pits?, East Riding Archaeologist 11, Hull


Also the east Yorkshire square barrows are largely 'dated' by typological reference to brooches etc. Think only 4 radiocarbon dates exist (so far) for hundreds of excavated barrows.

I know, technically typology isn't used to 'date' anything directly, but by inference. I've even seen a published argument where the author ignored a radiocarbon date as it didn't match the 'accepted' date for a brooch (which was typologically assigned).

Furthermore, the whole 3 age system is a form of typological dating, with things like microliths indicating mesolithic activity, pottery later activity etc...............masking the whole fact that objects from these 'set' time periods can be contemporary.

[P Prentice]

I know, technically typology isn't used to 'date' anything directly

i rest my case

[Oxbeast]

Come off it PP, you know what Jack means.

I just read an Anglo Saxon cemetery report, which had about 8 radiocarbon dates out of 300 graves. You'd look a bit silly in the report if you said, "we can only date 8 graves, and all these others which look quite similar and have grave goods must go down as an undated phase. We can't draw any inferences about burial practice changing over time because our sample is to small."

[Unitof1]

must go down as an undated phase

would be nice if the report did say that instead of trying to make out that 8 dates satisfied the post ex for the excavation.......8 out of 300 barely an evaluation sample.....

[Jack]

i rest my case

Seems you need a rest............I have come to expect better arguments from you }

[kevin wooldridge]

Come off it PP, you know what Jack means.

I just read an Anglo Saxon cemetery report, which had about 8 radiocarbon dates out of 300 graves. You'd look a bit silly in the report if you said, "we can only date 8 graves, and all these others which look quite similar and have grave goods must go down as an undated phase. We can't draw any inferences about burial practice changing over time because our sample is to small."

I agree and think that one of the advantages of using archaeological data obtained from stratigraphic excavation is that it is possible to interpolate dating ranges from a relatively small number of dated samples. Chronologies obtained in such a manner can be used as statistical underpinning for wider site and area interpretation....

....however a personal anecdote will illustrate the potential dangers of relying too much on typology. I was working on a project in the early 80s and we were visited by John Hurst (lovely guy, sadly missed). He came across to the structure I was excavating and rummaged amongst the collection of ceramics I had in my finds tray. 'What date do you think this ditch is?' he asked and I replied 'Probably no earlier than 11th century based on the finds '. 'Absolutely' he said 'What makes you think the pottery is 11th century? '....errrrr I read it in your book' I had to admit!!

[P Prentice]

Seems you need a rest............I have come to expect better arguments from you }

i dunno - you've been banging on about being a scientist and how the archaeology god is in the detail for long enough i just thought your proposition was a bit sloppy an ill thought out (for a scientist)

[P Prentice]

name me a chronology that is fit for purpose without the aid of typology (whatever that means)

[P Prentice]

...... 8 radiocarbon dates out of 300 graves. You'd look a bit silly in the report if you said, "we can only date 8 graves, and all these others which look quite similar and have grave goods must go down as an undated phase. We can't draw any inferences about burial practice changing over time because our sample is to small."

the god of radiocarbon dating has a lot riding these days. half the reports i read dont even state what the dates were obtained from, what the processes were and what the error factor are etc. its being used badly and most 20th century dates are cobblers anyway. people are still getting dates from odd bits of charcoal and saying they dated a context and other such nonsense. often a useful tool but never the answer

[tom wilson]

I once got C14 dates ranging variously C6th -10th (iirc) from ~ half a dozen skeletons that (definitely) cut through a big industrial feature containing about 250 not-particularly-abraded C11th -12th pot sherds (and more in the grave fills).

This illustrates (at least) one of two things:
a) when the impossible has been discounted the remaining possibility, however improbable, must be the case (i.e. all of the C14 dates are wrong...or the regional typology is).
b) sometimes you just can't win

Also:

the god of radiocarbon dating has a lot riding these days. half the reports i read dont even state what the dates were obtained from, what the processes were and what the error factor are etc. its being used badly and most 20th century dates are cobblers anyway. people are still getting dates from odd bits of charcoal and saying they dated a context and other such nonsense. often a useful tool but never the answer

The above quote is a fair point. C14 dates in publications are useless if you don't cite them and their standard deviations in full and, unless they're something indisputably a primary deposition (e.g. a skeleton), discuss the reliability of the date's attribution to a deposit. A great example is the World Heritage Site of Ban Chiang in Thailand, for a long time argued (by some) to be the oldest site in the world where bronze was in use, on the basis of some charcoal in a grave fill (there was a mesolithic phase on site, iirc). However, @PP, wouldn't you agree, this sort of thing is a failure to apply scientific method (i.e. taphonomy), not a failure of the method itself.