Archaeologists use two main methods for assigning a chronological framework to whatever they find: relative dating techniques, and absolute dating techniques. To see how this works, let's take an object, such as this pot, a type called a dipper. Here's how an archaeologist would put together the clues to the date of such an object. To get its relative date, first we note its "find spot". We'll say the dipper was found intact inside a larger food storage pot, called a pithos. Neither the pithos nor the dipper had been disturbed since they were last in use-- which is why the dipper (used to pass out the contents of the pithos) was in such good condition and not in the usual disturbed situation, which is much more complicated. The pit that had been cut to place the pithos slashed through a street (Context 3), and above the stone lid of the pithos was a house floor (Context 5) that |
ignored the presence of the pithos. This means that the relative date for the use of the pithos and its dipper (Context 4) was younger than Context 3 and older than Context 5. This is the basic stratigraphic method to determine relative chronology. If the dipper had any decoration on it, we could compare it to any decorated objects from the contexts around, under and above to see if we could begin to use the method of seriation to assign it to a known period with a known preference for a type of decoration. About all we can say about it from a quick examination is that it seems to be made on the potter's wheel, rather than formed by hand. From what we know of Troy, that is of little help: the potter's wheel is first used in Troy II, and continues till today. To summarize, we are not getting very far using the relative method of seriation of |
decoration, nor the absolute method of historic chronology - the case where some kind of date had been stamped onto the pot, as with this Roman amphora (transport jug) handle. We could apply another type of seriation to get a better relative date for our pot. We know that Carl Blegen published a serieated set of pot shapes for all of Troy. We compare our dipper to the profiles in Blegen's book, and find that it is a shape which appears only during Troy VI! This information corresponds very well with everything else we know about our Context 4. |
