Archaeologica.org

Hi there... I was wondering if someone could point me to some rather "elementary" websites, (or just let me know in the Forum... but keep it simple) that would explain the scientific methods of dating geological and archaeological remains? I come from a background in both creationism and evolution/science, and am looking into these things... I am looking more for the scientific side at this point.

So, how do they do it?

Any help would be appreciated. This is a great site.

Thanks all!

Thought I would add that Im just starting my arch research.... hence the elementary questions.... I now have a computer, just need to hook it up in the new year when I get home, and I hope to join in some lively forums here...

(Oh yeah, and for those of you who remember me from last Christmas, I forgot about the "Bosnian pyramids" entirely.)

Thanks guys, and Merry Ho-Ho.

I found a good site that answered a lot of my questions. Here it is:

id-archserve.ucsb.edu/Anth3/Courseware/Chronology/01_Contents.html

Well of the lot, dendochronology is the most irrefutable. I'm surprised the website didnt outline it better. Starting from the late middle ages, when they had timbers from buildings with court records showing when the trees were cut, they entered the ring patterns into computers to collate them across various locations to determine when unrecorded buildings were built.

But then, far more abundant, are post stubs. Before posts were set in the ground, they were commonly charred to prevent them from rotting. But after the building burnt or was abandoned and rotted away, these stubs remain in the ground, with the ring pattern preserved in the charcoal. So they were able to match up ring patterns before the 14th century, and as the samples came in, added to the database, moving ever further back in time.

For SE Europe, where timber frame construction goes back into the neolithic, the dendochronology goes back now over 8000 years. Past the putatitive calculation cited in scripture. Truly antedeluvian.

There was a website up on a timber frame well casing found in Austria, the anerobic conditions preserving riven timbers that look to be sawn off. From trees that were cut in 5078 BC.

There's been lotsa controversy because dendochronology shows Carbon 14 was off. But that diff, which they think may have been caused by variations in the CO2 level in the atmosphere, was only 10%.

More challenging to religious sensibilities is the idea that Native Europeans have some Neanderthal DNA.