| Page 410 | |
since its development by willard libby in 1952. Radiocarbon dating has become the most widely used absolute dating technology all over the world. Indeed, one of its very great strengths has been its capacity to create a “world prehistory”—a framework within which archaeologists could compare what was happening in parts of the world that had, at that time, little or no shared history (Bowman 1990). However, virtually from the time the technique was first applied to archaeological contexts, practitioners have recognized and worked to correct limitations in the technology—an effort that has led to the development of a thriving industry in dating research and the education of archaeologists in the business of collecting samples and interpreting dates. After some fifty years of research we now have enhancements of Libby’s original technique that can deliver more accurate absolute dates over longer time periods.
Some limitations in radiocarbon dating have been overcome by the development of new technologies such as luminescence dating (Aitken 1985), which themselves have become the subjects of ongoing research. Given that dating is so central to the business of doing archaeology in the early twentieth-first century, any reputable undergraduate archaeology textbook contains exhaustive descriptions of techniques for dating materials as diverse as the enamel on teeth or the products of volcanic eruptions in the very remote human past. The identification of regular decay processes occurring in nature is an ongoing task designed to assist the archaeologist in obtaining absolute dates from seemingly intractable materials and to improve our confidence in the reliability and precision of such dates. Notwithstanding the great success achieved by dating specialists in the twentieth century, we should never forget that although the development and application of the technologies is important, the task of making sense of them remains firmly in the province of the archaeologist.
References
Aitken, M. J. 1985. Thermoluminescence Dating. London: Academic Press.
———. 1990. Science-based Dating in Archaeology. London: Longman.
Baillie, M. G. 1982. Tree-ring Dating and Archaeology. London: Croom Helm.
Bowman, S. 1990. Radiocarbon Dating. London: British Museum Publications.
(1811–1888)
Davis was born at Hillsboro in southern Ohio, a town surrounded by a number of circular, square, and octagonal earthworks that were the cause of much speculation. From his earliest years Davis was interested in the origins of the mounds and their builders. He graduated from the Cincinnati Medical College in 1837 and settled down to practice medicine in Chillicothe, Ohio, but his interest in the earthworks continued. Davis financed the surveying of 100 of these, and the stratigraphic excavation of others, by newspaper editor-turned-archaeologist Ephraim G. Squier. Consolidating their data with the findings of other researchers on prehistoric earthworks from all over the eastern united states, Davis and Squier co-wrote Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley (1847), the smithsonian institution’s first publication. It remains an important source of information for archaeologists to this day. Squier and Davis supported caleb atwater’s Moundbuilder theory, and while this precluded speculation on the origins of mounds and earthworks, they did speculate on their possible uses.
Davis collected artifacts from the mounds that were regarded as surprisingly advanced artistically. Most of his collection was acquired by the Blackmore Museum in Salisbury, England, while a smaller part is in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Davis was professor of medicine at the New York Medical College from 1850 to 1860, and maintained his interest in archaeology, appearing as a regular lecturer on archaeology to various learned societies.
(1837–1929)
Born in Shropshire, England, Dawkins studied geology at Oxford and after graduating in 1860 worked for the Geological Survey of England.
| |