How Old Is It? The Story of Dating in Archeaology

The text introduces geochronology and distinguishes absolute clocks, which yield calendrical ages, from relative clocks, which order events without precise years. It surveys dating resources used by archaeologists, including written calendars and cross-cultural correlations, tree-ring (dendrochronological) methods with signature matching and master chronologies, and radiocarbon dating with its half-life principle and typical sample types such as charcoal, wood, bone, and shell. It emphasizes using multiple methods to crosscheck results, explains limitations and species or preservation constraints, and outlines how chronologies are extended by overlapping records from different sites.