Relative Dating and Seriation
Relative dating orders deposits and artifacts in time without assigning calendar years, with seriation arranging assemblages into sequences based on the changing frequency or presence of types.
Definition
Methods that place archaeological materials in chronological order relative to one another, including seriation, which sequences assemblages according to the patterned appearance and popularity of artifact types over time.
Scope
This topic covers the principles of relative chronology built from stratigraphy, typology, and cross-dating, and the technique of seriation, which orders graves or assemblages by the rise and fall of artifact styles. It addresses contextual (occurrence) and frequency seriation, the assumptions about stylistic change they rest on, and their relationship to absolute dating.
Core questions
- How can artifacts and deposits be ordered in time without absolute dates?
- What assumptions about stylistic change underlie seriation?
- How do contextual and frequency seriation differ?
- How is relative chronology anchored to absolute dates?
Key theories
- Seriation by stylistic change
- The principle, pioneered by Flinders Petrie, that artifact styles emerge, become popular, and decline in regular patterns, so that assemblages can be ordered by the frequencies or presence of those styles.
- Frequency and battleship-curve seriation
- The formal ordering of assemblages so that each type's frequency forms a single peaked, 'battleship-shaped' curve through time, used widely in Americanist archaeology.
History
Flinders Petrie devised sequence dating for Egyptian predynastic graves in the 1890s, ordering them by changing pottery styles. Seriation was developed further by Americanist archaeologists such as A. L. Kroeber and James Ford, formalized statistically in the mid-20th century, and remained central to chronology until absolute methods became widespread, after which it served alongside them.
Debates
- What drives stylistic change
- Seriation assumes orderly, time-driven changes in style, but scholars debate how far function, social identity, or regional variation, rather than chronology alone, shape the frequencies on which the method depends.
Key figures
- Flinders Petrie
- James A. Ford
- Michael J. O'Brien
Related topics
Seminal works
- petrie1899
- obrienlyman1999
Frequently asked questions
- What is seriation?
- Seriation is a relative dating technique that arranges assemblages or graves into a sequence based on how the presence or popularity of artifact types changes over time.
- Is relative dating still useful now that absolute methods exist?
- Yes; relative methods provide chronology where absolute dates are unavailable or too costly, and they supply the ordered framework into which absolute dates are fitted.