A variety of techniques have been developed to provide scientific chronologies of archaeological sites and material culture. These chronologies underpin the narratives that are generated for prehistoric and other periods. The application of Bayesian statistical analysis to scientific chronologies has been hailed as 'a revolution in understanding', and has brought renewed emphasis onto how we generate scientific chronological data, how these data are applied into wider narratives, and the epistemological importance of these data. Scientific Dating in Archaeology will provide a timely review of the methods, applications and challenges of applying different scientific dating techniques to archaeological sites and material culture. It will then provide an introduction to Bayesian modelling, and highlight a series of considerations in the application of scientific dating techniques.
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Conventions used
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Radiocarbon / Seren Griffiths and Thomas Higham
Chapter 3 Dendrochronology / Martin Bridge and Seren Griffiths
Chapter 4 Luminescence – Optically Simulated Luminescence and Thermoluminescence / Abi Stone and Seren Griffiths
Chapter 5 Archaeomagnetic dating / Sam Harris and Seren Griffiths
Chapter 6 Palaeoenvironmental chronologies / Seren Griffiths and Benjamin Gearey
Chapter 7 On Site — designing and implementing chronometric sampling strategies / Seren Griffiths
Chapter 8 Analysing Datasets – Bayesian inference and archaeological chronometric data / Seren Griffiths and Richard Staff
Chapter 9 Scientific dating and narrative / Seren Griffiths
Seren Griffiths is a Senior Lecturer in Public Archaeology and Archaeological Science at Manchester Metropolitan University. She is the PI on the AHRC-funded project TIME. She has period specialisms in European prehistory, with methodological specialisms in archaeological science and the history of archaeological thought. She is a 2020-2021 BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker. She sits on the Highways England Scientific Committee