A variety of techniques have been developed to provide scientific chronologies of archaeological sites and material culture. These chronologies under-pin 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. This volume 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.

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Studying Scientific Archaeology
• Contents
• Contributors
• Conventions used
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction
  • Scientific dating and archaeological thought
  • The structure of this volume
• 2. Radiocarbon
  • History of development and importance in the history of archaeological thought
  • Underlying principles
  • Measurement
  • Offsets
  • Quality indicators: being a critical consumer
  • Case studies
  • Chapter conclusions
• 3. Dendrochronology
  • History of methodological development
  • Underlying principles
  • Measurement
  • Sample selection
  • Quality indicators: being a critical consumer
  • Wiggle matching
  • Case studies
  • Chapter conclusions
• 4. Luminescence: Optically Simulated Luminescence and Thermoluminescence
  • Principles and methodological developments
  • Measurement
  • Applied sampling considerations
  • Quality indicators: being a critical consumer
  • Case studies
  • Chapter conclusions
• 5. Archaeomagnetic dating
  • History of development
  • Age calculation and calibration
  • Quality indicators: being a critical consumer
  • Case studies
  • Chapter conclusions
• 6. Ecofactual chronologies
  • Thinking about ecofactual chronologies
  • Sampling for proxy chronologies
  • Analytical definition of palaeo-environmental events
  • Constructing models
  • Case studies
  • Chapter conclusions
• 7. On site: designing and implementing chronometric sampling strategies
  • Applications of scientific dating in the field
  • Approaches to designing chronometric sampling strategies
  • Practical considerations of different methods in the field
  • Ensuring quality
  • Sampling considerations by method
  • Chapter conclusions
• 8. Analysing datasets: Bayesian inference and archaeological chronometric data
  • Approaches to archaeological chronometric data and Bayesian modelling
  • Case studies
  • Chapter conclusions
• 9. Scientific dating and narrative
  • ‘Science facts’ and archaeological narratives
  • Warrants, reversibility, close observation and Big Data
  • Chronological knowledge structure and sequence
  • Chapter conclusions
• Appendix: Code for selected case studies in Chapter 8