Question about relative vs absolute dating...?

Question

am currently researching how archaeologists date things, and they use both relative and absolute dating.

what is a scenario whre it might be better to use relative dating instead of absolute dating, and vice versa

and is there a situation where the combination may be more effective than iether alone?

Answer 1

Here's the short version. You find an object and want to know how old it is. If it's a coin you look at the date and find "1961." You know the calendar and can answer how old it is. That's chronometric dating.

When was the coin lost? We don't know the absolute date. However, the relative date is after 1961 and based on wear a relative date for lost may be given

However, not everything has a date on it and some objects with dates don't use our calendar. I was at a dig this summer and we found a 9,000 year old projectile point. It didn't have a date on it and the people that made it didn't have a written language. How did the archeologist know?

First he was dating by stratigraphy. The older objects are found deeper in the ground. The point was just above the sterile level of the pit. Next is by style, design, and what has been found with similar points. You find an Elko side-notch and can give a fairly close estimate of how old it is. That's based on the points that have already been found and dated. You find a Clovis point and it can be reliability dated to 10,500 years ago.

We also recovered burnt wood from a fire pit. Now Carbon-14 dating can be used to get an approximate date when the wood used in the fire had been cut. Had we found a house with a wood beam, decnochronoloy could have been used to know when the tree that the beam came from was cut down. If you're dealing with great age, pottassium-argon dating can be used. There's also methods that use the location of the magnetic north pole, the evolution of fossils and other techniques.

Carbon 14 has an error margin in it. The amount of carbon 14 in the air has changed and certain factors can change the date. If it was a piece of modern wood, carbon 14 might have too much of an error range to get a good date

Rather then explain them all, see these sites below:

When was a site occupied? While it would be nice to get absolute dates relative dates, based on some of the dating methods are just as good. One student did a science project on a shell midden. We knew the relative date but more interesting was she work showed when during the year the mussels were collected. That told us a great deal about the people's life styles.

Answer 2

I love House.

Relative dating is ideal if you have no money.  It is also ideal if you do not want to destroy your artifact.  Relative dating is usually done as long as the artifact is found in the archaeological record (as opposed to purchased on ebay).