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Archaeology Dating Research Paper

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Archaeology has five different dating methods that are most commonly used, such as Carbon-14, Potassium-argon, Paleomagnetism, Tephrochronology, and Biostratigraphy. The two types of dating that split these methods up are Absolute and Relative, both equally important to the world of Archaeology but used for very different purposes. Absolute or chronometric dating, is more precise and specific when dating items of the past. This dating will lead to a date in calendar years, it may be a range of years. Carbon-14 and Potassium-argon are types of absolute dating that are specifically mentioned in the second supplemental reading. Items that absolute dating is used for are: bone, charcoal, wood, ash, etc. While all of these may be categorized under the same type of dating, they are used to date …show more content…

Potassium-40 decays into Argon-40 at a known rate. To do this method volcanic rock must be present, the measurement of Potassium-40 to Argon-40 is looked at and the results of the measurement is compared to the decay rate of Potassium-40. The clock is set to 0 as soon as a volcanic eruption occurs because when rocks are heated up they release all the Argon-40 that was in them into the atmosphere, leaving them with none and when it hardens again it becomes vulnerable to the gasses. The Potassium-40 will decay in the rock into Argon-40 and this results in the Argon-40 getting trapped by the rock. The half-life of Potassium-40 is 1,250 million years, and with a half-life that large we are able to use this dating method on items as old as 500 thousand years old to billions of years old. Since potassium is such a common element in the past, it is easy to find sites to use this dating on. We use this dating to date old sites found by Archaeologists, Paleontologists, or Geologists. This dating method is best used when there has been a volcanic flow on or by the

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