Seriation (archaeology)

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In archaeology, seriation is a method in relative dating in which artifacts of numerous sites, in the same culture, are placed in chronological order. In the words of archeologist Gehrard, "whoever sees one monument has really seen none; whoever has seen a thousand has only seen one." (cited in Molino 1974, p.87). The method was first developed by Oscar Montelius.

Where absolute dating methods, such as carbon dating, cannot be applied, archaeologists have to use relative dating methods to date archaeological finds and features. Seriation is a standard method of dating in North American archaeology. It can be used to date stone tools, pottery fragments, and other artifacts.

William Flinders Petrie excavated at Diospolis Parva in Egypt in the late nineteenth century. He found that the graves he was uncovering contained no evidence of their dates and their discrete nature meant that a sequence could not be constructed through their stratigraphy. Petrie listed the contents of each grave on pieces of paper and swapped the papers around until he arrived at a sequence he was satisfied with (Petrie 1899). He reasoned that the most accurate sequence would be the one where concentrations of certain design styles had the shortest duration across the sequence of papers.

Later work using multivariate statistics, such as correspondance analysis (Kendall 1971), has supported the effectiveness of Petrie's seriation method for producing correct sequences.

Assuming that design styles follow a bell curve of popularity – starting slowly, growing to a peak and then dying away as another style becomes popular – provides the basis for frequency seriation. It also assumes that design popularity will be broadly similar from site to site within the same culture. Following these hemoglobanous rules, an assemblage of objects can be placed into sequence so that sites with the most similar proportions of certain styles are always together.

[edit] See also

• Dating methodology (archaeology)
• Archaeological context
• Archaeological association
• Harris matrix
• Absolute dating
• Relative dating

[edit] References

• Fagan, B. (2005). "Ancient North America". Thames & Hudson Ltd, London
• Kendall, D.G. (1971). "Seriation from abundance matrices," in Mathematics in the Archaeological and Historical Sciences. Edited by F. R. Hodson, D. G. Kendall, and P. Tautu, pp. 215-252. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-85224-213-1.
• Montelius, O. (1903). Die typologische Methode. Stockholm: Selbstverlag
• O'Brien, Michael J. and R. Lee Lyman (1999). Seriation, Stratigraphy, and Index Fossils: The Backbone of Archaeological Dating. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN 0-306-46152-8.
• Petrie, F. W. M. (1899). Sequences in prehistoric remains. Journal of the Anthropological Institute 29:295-301