5th October 2011, 01:43 PM
Yep Hosty, things don't have to be that complicated. Archaeologists should follow the example of the other scientists and measure things using independent scales with standard units.
N.B. as far as I can remember cal BP dates are frowned upon due to confusion between cal and uncal, but its not a surprise that wikipedia is correct and incorrect at the same time.
After all years BP (before 1950) are just as arbitrary as BC/AD. It wont be too long before you'll get negative years BP or years after present and your back to the same problem (BP/AP :p). Best to calibrate to calendar years BC/AD as it is the standard date system for the planet (at the moment).
Once the scientific community agrees on a standard time scale that starts at 0 and goes to infinity (like the Kelvin scale for temperature) then it'll be easy enough to convert to that. But where is 0 time?
The point is calendar years are a consistent (ish!) and universal measure of time. Radiocarbon dating (after calibration and taking into account error functions) measures time independent of everything else (other than relativity and quantum effects). A radiocarbon date of 100BC-AD100 (SUERC) at a probability of 95% measured from a bone from a pit from Durham is the same as a radiocarbon date of 100BC-AD100 (SUERC) at a probability of 95% measured from a bone from a pit from New South Wales in Australia.
Whereas the 'start', early, mid- and late Iron (for instance), or even the 'Roman' period is different even within a single county, but is most apparent when comparing England with Scotland, Ireland, France, Denmark etc..etc.....
Hence using 'Roman' or any of the other arbitrary nonsense terms as a period of time is silly.
People should should stop doing it......or i'll keep pointing at them and calling them silly.
I would say though, if you wanna make your date sound sexy, its still perfectly correct to equate your boring sounding (but accurate) date to other things that were (probably) happening.
e.g. ........the settlement was probably abandoned and the enclosure ditch in-filled by the late 1st century AD and hence probably fell out of use during or soon after the Roman advance into the region.
But NOT.....the settlement was occupied in the Iron Age and was abandoned by the Roman period.
!
silly.
N.B. as far as I can remember cal BP dates are frowned upon due to confusion between cal and uncal, but its not a surprise that wikipedia is correct and incorrect at the same time.
After all years BP (before 1950) are just as arbitrary as BC/AD. It wont be too long before you'll get negative years BP or years after present and your back to the same problem (BP/AP :p). Best to calibrate to calendar years BC/AD as it is the standard date system for the planet (at the moment).
Once the scientific community agrees on a standard time scale that starts at 0 and goes to infinity (like the Kelvin scale for temperature) then it'll be easy enough to convert to that. But where is 0 time?
The point is calendar years are a consistent (ish!) and universal measure of time. Radiocarbon dating (after calibration and taking into account error functions) measures time independent of everything else (other than relativity and quantum effects). A radiocarbon date of 100BC-AD100 (SUERC) at a probability of 95% measured from a bone from a pit from Durham is the same as a radiocarbon date of 100BC-AD100 (SUERC) at a probability of 95% measured from a bone from a pit from New South Wales in Australia.
Whereas the 'start', early, mid- and late Iron (for instance), or even the 'Roman' period is different even within a single county, but is most apparent when comparing England with Scotland, Ireland, France, Denmark etc..etc.....
Hence using 'Roman' or any of the other arbitrary nonsense terms as a period of time is silly.
People should should stop doing it......or i'll keep pointing at them and calling them silly.
I would say though, if you wanna make your date sound sexy, its still perfectly correct to equate your boring sounding (but accurate) date to other things that were (probably) happening.
e.g. ........the settlement was probably abandoned and the enclosure ditch in-filled by the late 1st century AD and hence probably fell out of use during or soon after the Roman advance into the region.
But NOT.....the settlement was occupied in the Iron Age and was abandoned by the Roman period.
!silly.