How is age of artifacts determined in diggings, other than carbon dating?

Answer 1

By what layer of rock or dirt they're found in. If you know the age of the layer of dirt that was layed down that buried the artifact, then there is a good chance that the artifact is of the same age.

Answer 2

Archaeologists use relative and absolute dating techniques to find the age of an artifact.

Relative techniques include:
Cation Ratio
Cultural Affiliation
Fluorine Dating
Obsidian Hydration
Patination
Pollen Analysis
Rate of Accumulation
Seriation
Varve Analysis

Absolute techniques include:
Archaeomagnetism
Astronomical Dating
Dendrochronology
Electron Spin Resonance (ESR)
Fission Track
Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL)
Oxidizable Carbon Ratio (OCR)
Potassium- Argon Dating
Racemization
Thermoluminescence Dating
Uranium-Thorium Dating

Answer 3

One way is how it looks. In the New World, historic stuff is especially easy. Sometimes you even find serial numbers! The prehistoric stuff, you go on style, decoration, and material. A piece of pottery with such-and-so decoration and this kind of temper in it will give you a pretty good idea of time period, as will an arrowhead that looks this way instead of that. Archaeologists have a pretty good idea of what people were doing when, based on prior research.

Another way is dirt level. One of the phases of many modern archaeological digs in the US involves a backhoe and a large hole. An archaeologist can jump down there and draw some lines across the soil that represent different deposits. It's actually pretty easy to see- there's color changes, consistency changes, and the ever-beloved layers of tiny, annoying rocks. These soil levels have probably already been studied before you, so if you know what's supposed to be there, you can probably figure out what you're seeing. If you're a big, huge geek like me, it's actually pretty interesting to hang out with a geomorphologist as they tell you where the river used to be and which layer of tiny, annoying rocks represents the glaciers coming through. But anyway, one of the bits of info that we always have to write down (archaeology: 10% hot sun, 10% freezing rain, 10% dive bars, 70% writing sh!t down) is color and soil consistency of every layer we dig through.

Carbon dating still happens regularly, and my bosses are always happy with nice, big chunks of charcoal. For generalized ideas about eras, though, there are lots of other places to go.

Answer 4

That depends upon the artifact. Some artifacts can be dated by their appearance and style. Others are dated via the rock layer in which the objects are found, which is dated most commonly by uranium-238 (you may want to check the 238 number, I could be wrong).

Answer 5

1. Potassium/Argon dating 2. Uranium decays radioactively to form Lead at a known rate (called its half-life, being that amount of time that it takes for 1/2 of an amount of it to decay). 3. Photoluminescence. 4. Electron Spin Resonance (look them up in Wikipedia or Google, & go to:http:www.talkorigins.org/ and books on palaeontology, archeology, human & animal evolution in your library. Also, rock strata are known and compared, the lower down; the older (usually!).

Answer 6

there are many scientific ways of absolute dating other than carbon 14 dating...

if you are talking about relative dating methods, then its things like the law of superposition, principles of stratigraphy, dendrochonology, etc...

Answer 7

Just ask the locals. They make a fortune making most of these "ancient artifacts."