21st February 2012, 02:25 PM
Oxbeast Wrote:...... 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
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers