Methods In Archaeology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Methods In Archaeology - Essay Example By reading the way he presents his work, one can easily connect the various stages and even come up with the relationship between various these varied steps. The archeologist and the geologists use both absolute and the relative dating methods for them to determine the ages of various historical artifacts. However, both the absolute and the relative dating methods have their negative strengths and weaknesses. Limitations of absolute dating methodsOne of the materials used in the absolute dating method are Carbon. When carbon is used, there are various shortcomings that are associated with it. For instance, the half of carbon -14 used is roughly 5730 years. The half-life of this carbon makes it only effective to measure or rather date historical events of up to about only 75000 years. As per this technique, it is very important to note that dating events that occurred past these years are very difficult. Therefore, a person is just limited to investigate events that occurred within th is time frame. This is very unfair since it will not give the best chronology of events in life. It becomes very difficult to give a clear chronology of events that occurred a long time ago that the carbon-14 cannot date. It is also very difficult to date wood using this method since most woods is always burnt and may be found in the form of ash. Therefore, it is very difficult to differentiate when the wood burned and the date of the wood. Thermoluminescence is another form of dating used under the same method that also has its own problems.