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Dating Techniques
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Since the first trowel unearthed the first stone tool, archaeologists have sought to arrange sites and artifacts in the order in which they appeared.
The first problem encountered when trying to determine the date of an ancient object is that in prehistoric times there were no written records to document the cultures of the past, so archaeologists relied on a system of relative dating to put things into context. In relative dating, a series of techniques are used that compares artifacts to determine which is older. Paleolimnology involves some of the relative dating techniques used. Unfortunately, relative dating techniques give us no idea of the actual age of an artifact or site.
In the 1940's Willard Libby discovered that as time passes the carbon-14 in dead organic objects decays at a given rate that can be carefully measured and an exact age determined. This was the beginning of a revolution in dating and the start of absolute dating, or the determination of an actual age of an object.
