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Ecologic Adaptation and Cultural Change in Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Fredrik Barth
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Extract

The new age-dating method based on the radioactive carbon isotope C14 is now turning out absolute dates and promises to reorganize the chronological framework of American archaeology. The results demonstrate that conventional methods of determining relative and absolute age are often uncertain, and that a much more exact technique can in most cases be substituted for the type seriation of archaeology.

Of course the new technique still has its shortcomings, but that does not basically affect the argument. C14 agedating represents the first clear step towards making archaeology an exact science. As a result, a reorientation of the central emphasis in archaeology must sooner or later take place.

Actually, this situation makes it possible for the archaeologist to go one step further in his interpretation than has generally been the case till now. The temporal framework will soon be established with reasonable security, and when a fertile approach to the subject matter is adopted, generalizations of value to all in anthropology should be forthcoming.

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Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 15 , Issue 4Part1 , April 1950 , pp. 338 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1950

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References

1 Some groups, e.g., of Plains Indians, were active in two types of seasonally separate adaptation, farming and hunting. The distinction between the two patterns of life was recognized in seasonal differences in social structure, e.g., kinship systems.