Archaeological science

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Archaeological science (also known as Archaeometry) is the application of scientific techniques and methodologies to archaeology.


Archaeological science can be divided into the following areas:

  • Physical and chemical dating methods which provide archaeology with absolute and relative chronologies.
  • Artefact studies incorporating (i) provenance, (ii) technology, and (iii) use.
  • Environmental approaches which provide information on past landscapes, climates, flora, and fauna as well as diet, nutrition, health, and pathology of people.
  • Mathematical methods as tools for data treatment also encompassing the role of computers in handling, analysing, and modeling the vast sources of data.
  • Remote sensing and geophysical survey applications comprising a battery of non-destructive techniques for the location and characterisation of buried features at the regional, microregional, and intra-site levels.
  • Conservation sciences, involving the study of decay processes and the development of new methods of conservation.* See Example

This data was taken from: Tite, M.S. (1991) Archaeological Science - past achievements and future prospects. Archaeometry 31 139-151.


Significant new data can be obtained using these techniques, which has the potential to alter the understanding of the past. A good example of this is the so-called "Second radiocarbon revolution", which significantly re-dated European prehistory in the 1960's (the first radiocarbon revolution was the original introduction of the method to archaeology).

As indicated, one of the most important applications of archaeological science has been the absolute dates it can provide for archaeological strata and artefacts. Some of most important of these are:

  • Radiocarbon dating - for dating organic materials
  • Dendrochronology - for dating trees, but also very important for calibrating radiocarbon dates.
  • Thermoluminescence dating - for dating inorganic material including ceramics.
  • Optically Stimulated Luminescence - for absolutely dating and relatively profiling buried land surfaces in vertical and horizontal stratigraphic sections, most often by measuring photons discharged from Quartz grains within sedimentary bodies, although Feldspars are also able to be measured through this technique, complications caused by internally induced dose rates often mean Quartz-based analyses are favoured in archaeological applications.
  • Electron spin resonance
  • Potassium-argon dating - for dating fossilized hominid remains.

However, archaeological science has been applied in many other ways. A variety of methods have been used to analyse artefacts, either to determine more about their composition, or to determine their provenance. These techniques include:

Lead, strontium and oxygen isotope analysis can also be applied to human remains to estimate the diet and the even birthplace of study subjects.

Provenance analysis has the potential to determine the original source of the material used, for example, to create a particular artefact. This can show how far the artefact has been transported and can be used to indicate systems of exchange.

The use of remote sensing has enabled archaeologists to identify many more archaeological sites than would otherwise have been possible. The use of aerial photography remains the most wide-spread remote sensing technique, but this has been supplemented by the use of satellite imagery, especially with the declassification of images from military satellites. Ground-based geophysical survey is most often used to identify and map archaeological features within identified sites.

[edit] See also

Techniques such as lithic analysis, paleoethnobotany, palynology and zooarchaeology are also sub-disciplines of archaeological science.

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