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Contemporaneity and Cross-dating in Archaeological Interpretation*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Thomas Carl Patterson
Thomas Carl Patterson*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, California
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Abstract

That cultural units are contemporary merely means that they are assigned to the same arbitrary division of time, or period. The degree of contemporaneity which is implied when units are assigned to the same period depends upon the duration of the units and the length of the period. Correlation is the alignment of sequences of units or the placement of units with respect to sequences. Synchronic correlation, or cross-dating, involves assigning units to the same period because they are contemporary. When correlations are based on contemporaneity, detailed interpretations of the archaeological evidence are possible. Precise cross-dating permits more detailed statements about cultural process and relationship. Precise cross-dating is possible when units are assigned to periods which have brief spans in time or when reference is made to a chronological framework which is not defined in terms of the archaeological materials. Cross-dating is most credible when both the sequences of units in the different localities and the patterning of each cultural unit are known and understood.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , January 1963 , pp. 389 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1963

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Footnotes

*

A draft of this paper was presented at the spring meeting of the Kroeber Anthropological Society and the Southwestern Anthropological Association, Berkeley, April 20, 1962.

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