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79 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
The use of annual growth rings in trees to assign calendar ages to ancient wood samples
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Tree-ring dating (dendochronology)
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Tree-ring dating (dendochronology) developed by
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Douglass
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Douglass worked in...
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SW/Arizona
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trees are ____ in winter and ____ in spring
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dormant, active
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Dendochronology helped to date ____
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Betatakin
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____ collected more samples in Betatakin from building materials in various rooms
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Dean
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Age of the final ring
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cutting date
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Tree-ring width is a function of ______and _____
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precipitation, temperature
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Radiocarbon dating discovered by...
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...Libby
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What carbon isotope is used in radiocarbon dating?
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14
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What do you measure in radiocarbon dating?
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Beta emissions
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The time required for half of the carbon-14 available in an organic sample to decay
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libby half-life
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what is the standard libby half-life
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5568
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When is the present?
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AD 1950
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what 2 things are hard to date?
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bones, plants
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The specific chemical process through which plants metabolize carbon; the three major pathways discriminate against carbon-13 in different ways, therefore similarly aged plants that use different pathways can produce different radiocarbon ages
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photosynthetic pathways
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When organisms take in carbon from a source that is depleted of or enriched in carbon-14 relative to the atmosphere; such samples may return ages that are considerably older or younger than they actually are
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reservoir effect
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____ was first to find fault in atmospheric assumption
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De Vries
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- Fluctuations in the calibration curve produced by variations in the atmosphere’s carbon-14 content; these can cause radiocarbon dates to calibrate more than one calendar age
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De Vries effects
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why is only the part of the site needed to answer the research question excavated?
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digging destroys data that we don’t know yet to collect
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A method of radiocarbon dating that counts the proportion of carbon isotopes directly (rather than using the indirect Geiger counter method), thereby dramatically reducing the quantity of datable material required
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Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS)
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____ found four grains of domesticated barley and one grain of wheat in southern Egypt
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Wendorf
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Forms of dating that rely upon the fact that electrons become trapped in minerals’ crystal lattices as a function of background radiation; the age of the specimen is the total radiation received divided by the annual dose of radiation.
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trapped charge dating
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trapped charge dating identifies...
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... the last time a specimen had its electron traps emptied
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A trapped charge dating technique used on ceramics and burnt stone artifacts- anything mineral that has been heated to more than 500 degrees C.
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thermoluminescence
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thermoluminescence doesn't work if...
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...artifact was accidentally burned years after manufacture
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An early form of humans who lived in Europe and the Near East about 300,000 to 30,000 years ago
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Neanderthals
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3 ways to determing total radiation dose
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thermoluminescence, optically stimulated luminescence, electron spin resonance
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A trapped charge dating technique used to date sediments (dirt); the age is the time elapsed between the last time a few moments exposure to sunlight reset the clock to zero and the present.
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optically stimulated luminescence
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optically stimulated luminescence works best with...
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...eolian sands
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A trapped charge technique used to date tooth enamel and buried stone tools; it can date teeth that are beyond the range of radiocarbon dating.
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electron spin resonance
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___ changed understanding of human evolution
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electron spin resonance
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A device to measure the amount of gamma radiation emitted by sediments (annual dose). It is normally buried in a stratum for a year to record the annual dose of radiation
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dosimeter
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what 2 methods are used to date the age of formation of a particular layer of rock?
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potassium-argon and argon-argon
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An absolute dating technique that monitors the decay of potassium into argon gas
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potassium-argon dating
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____ was used to estimate age of homo erectus
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potassium-argon dating
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a hominid who lived in Africa, Asia, and Europe between 2 million and 500,000 years ago. These hominids walked upright, made simple stone tools, and may have used fire
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homo erectus
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for potassium-argon dating to work,
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there must have been no argon trapped at the time of formation
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A high-precision method for estimating the relative quantities of argon-39 to argo-40 gas; used to date volcanic ashes that are between 500,000 and several million years old
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argon-argon dating
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A potential problem with radiocarbon (or tree-ring) dating in which old wood has been scavenged and reused in a later archaeological site; the resulting date is not a true age of the associated human activity.
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old wood problem
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____ and ____ dated the pyramids through radiocarbon dating on the mortar
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Nakhla, Hawass
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Nakhla and Hawass dated the pyramids through _____ on the mortar
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radiocarbon dating
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2 ways to date material remains
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direct, indirect
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Analysis of the artifact, ecofact, or feature itself to arrive at a chronological evaluation
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direct dating
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Analysis of material associated with the data under study to derive a chronological evaluation
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indirect dating
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Determining age or chronological sequence without reference to a fixed time scale
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relative dating
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Relies on comparisons with other forms of data to determine “older than†or “younger thanâ€
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relative dating
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Determination of age on a specific time scale, as in years before present, or according to a fixed calendrical system
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absolute dating
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Example: A series of artifacts found in an excavation that stylistically represent different time periods (dates unspecified) are dated relative to one another
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Direct Relative Dating
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Example: An artifact is dated using a method like radiocarbon dating to specific year, or spread of years
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Direct Absolute Dating
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Example: A series of artifacts are extracted from different strata/levels (dates unspecified) of an excavation and are dated relative to one another
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Indirect Relative Dating
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Example: A series of artifacts are extracted from a strata/level/feature in an excavation that has been dated to a specific time period
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Indirect Absolute dating
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The date after which an artifact or feature must have been deposited
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Terminus post quem
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The date before which an artifact or feature must have been deposited
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Terminus ante quem
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Based on physical comparisons such as stratigraphic placement in relation to other remains
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relative dating
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Able to date individual items with or without comparisons to other remains
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absolute dating
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Useful in clearing up questions of duration of time periods in a chronology
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absolute dating
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Able to place archaeological sites in chronological context if they lack diagnostic information
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absolute dating
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5 relative dating methods
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stratigraphic analysis/geochronology, biostratigraphy, temporal types, seriation, FUN dating
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Stratigraphic analysis/geochronology governed by...
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...law of superposition
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How to date materials found within soil or bedrock layers when they can be dated relative to materials in others
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stratigraphic analysis/geochronology
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Under what condition can geochronology be absolute?
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if the layer of bedrock containing remains has been dated
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Why is geochronology considered relative?
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the range of dates can be extremely large
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Archaeological association of cultural material with extinct animal or plant species
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Index fossils (biostratigraphy)
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What is comparable to geochronology for obtaining date ranges?
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biostratigraphy
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What is a problem with biostratigraphy?
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Exact date ranges may not be known for the species
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The association of particular remains with remains of a known type
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Temporal typing
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Techniques used to order materials in a sequence, in such a way that adjacent items in the series are more similar to each other than to items further apart in the series
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seriation
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how is seriation done most often?
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by an examination of stylistic attributes
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what are the three things that can be looked at for seriation?
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stylistic, form, technological
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what is seriation usually done in combination with? (2 things)
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stratigraphic and frequency analysis
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A relative measure that examines the ratio of nitrogen to fluorine and uranium in bone
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Flouride/Uranium/Nitrogen (FUN) dating
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WHat means a younger date in FUN dating?
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More nitrogen
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What is FUN dating affected by?
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climate
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The study of tree ring patterns among trees both living and dead and linking them to develop a continuous chronology
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dendochronology
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The iron particles in certain materials that are heated to 700 degrees Celsius will reorient to the position of MNP at that time
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archaeomagnitism
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Requires that materials have been left in place since heating
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archaeomagnitism
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Measures the amount and rate of the absorption of water on the surface of a piece of obsidian
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obsidian hydration
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2 factors affecting absorption rate in obsidian hydration
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source of obsidian, environmental conditions
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