I am unclear what you are asking. Dating methods are relative or absolute (chronometric). The combination of dating methods is simply a way to use multiple kinds of samples (if available) to determine whether there is a congruence between different methods, based on the kinds of materials preserved in any particular archaeological record. Dating is a very basic descriptive tool about the archaeological records we encounter, it has no explanatory power.

I have to disagree. Dating methods might not be explanatory but they are not descriptive either.

They are based on the assumption that some quality of the dated object is connected to time in a rational way for us to infer. Now, some of these connections are based on well established scientific theories (radioactive decay, trapped electrons, annual growth, law of superimposition), but in some other cases (e.g. artefacts' based methods) the link between the object and time depends on theories on cultural evolution, technological variation, etc. None of these theories (or laws), nor the 'scientific' nor the 'archaeologic' ones, behave in a uniformitarian way (not all the variables are constant over time). This is famously the case for radiocarbon concentration in the atmosphere. Therefore adjustments need to be put in place. This happens by means of different, connected methods (in the case of radiocarbon, dendrochronology). It seems like independent confirmation is rarely 100% independent, because different dating methods are used to de-idealize each other.

Let us think that we have a split-based point (index fossil for the Aurignatian whose absolute age is debated) from a layer X in site Y. We date the point with radiocarbon. Let's imagine that we have radiocarbon dates from several layers in the site and a perfectly preserved exacavation record.So, we use Bayesian modelling to plot the date of that one artefact in the sequence. Now. let's imagine that we have two radiocarbon dates from layer X and both are outliers. Then the question is raised: are they actually outliers or there was mixing in the layers? This question can only be answered probabilistically, I think.

What happens in the literature is that those who favour a certain date for Aurignatian will dismiss the date as unreliable and those who favour another date will use it. In both these cases it will be used and combined with dates from other sites as a number and not as a number with a probability index.

This is even more complex for historical time, when you have to combine the dendrochronological date of a coffin X with the corinthian sherd buried in it (which might well be older or, in case of old wood, younger) with the date of the foundation of Syracuse by Thucidides. There scholars often want to reach a precision of 15 to 25 years, while there are several error bars to be added to the count.

I am not a statistician and I just started approaching quantitative methods, this is the reson why I am asking the academic community for help. I would love to hear your opinion on the matter

None of these methods of association are theories. Theories are the highest level of scientific inference based on multiple testing and re-testing of hypotheses. They issues are practical methods used to determine relationships between objects and the sedimentary units where they are found. Those include their temporal associations, possible functional associations, and the discard contexts in the archaeological record which are often significantly transformed from how any of those objects may have been used in the past. The inferences from these methods are only as useful as the sophistication of the geoarchaeological evaluations and our understanding of potential association between different kinds of artifacts. Dating is only one method of determining the age and potential association between objects. The relationship between dates we obtain and the objects are based on reasoned inferences about whether dating can identify the geological context of one or many objects. It has no relationship to "theories of cultural evolution" except that taxonomies have been developed that suggest we may know something about changes in some artifact forms over time - which may or may not be true. Relative dating by form should not take precedence over chronometric dating and careful evaluation of the geoarchaeological context. There seems to be some post-modernist critique in your ideas about how archaeologist conceive of, or use, dates. I have no idea what "de-idealization" of comparing dated samples might mean. Archaeologist understand the different errors inherent in different dating methods such as between radiocarbon results and dendrochronology. No reasonable archaeologist wastes time in a pursuit of 100% certainty of dates, we just try to get more so that can have a statistically larger sample on which to evaluate the geoarchaeological data we collect and spatial associations we have measured between items in the archaeological record. Your Aurigancian example would simply be a case of having too few dates to reliably infer that they may represent a consistent date for a particular sedimentary stratum or several strata (only resolvable with sufficient funding to collect and analyze a larger number of samples). A "perfectly preserved excavation [archaeological?] record" is highly unusual, and would only be an inference based on a large number of fine-scaled observations about the geomorphology (micr-morphology in this case) and other data about the sedimentary unit containing the artifacts. The variable dates in your example indicate it would probably not be such an intact deposit. All alert archaeologist worry about mixing of deposits, an extremely common event in the taphonomically complex formation of many archaeological sites. Your literature point is just about either validly skeptical archaeologist wondering whether the context has been adequately evaluated and dated or pig-headed individuals who think we already know everything about particular chronologies. For your hypothetical coffin & sherd example, the potential for different dating between such materials would not be an obscure consideration to archaeologists. Additionally, folks who do dendrochronology do, or should, always consider the old wood problem - it would be potentially difficult to evaluate in this example without multiple pieces and cutting dates representing the final exterior tree-rings Architectural examples of evaluating old wood issues are more appropriate rather than wooden artifacts made by extensive shaping and removal of exterior portions of the raw material. There are extensive studies of multiple dendrochronology samples of architectural elements used to evaluate how "old wood" can be used to look at the dynamics of stockpiling unused beams and later combining them with elements that exhibit more recent cutting dates. Those are used not because we are so interested in the chronology, but it may inform us about periods of different scales of building, potential abandonment of portions of sites or entire sites, the dynamics or re-occupation events, etc. that can have important implications for better understanding of the particular site or regional events in the past. While an historic archaeologist might want a very fine-scale dating resolution, any honest archaeologist recognizes this is not always possible. Using archaeology to "date" events we know of from historic documents may seem like a common research goal, but only in certain fields of archaeology, and certainly not the majority of prehistoric archaeological research. Dating is just a boring descriptive aspect of understanding the contexts of any archaeological record. We are much more interested in more important questions about how to use the many complexities of site formation to address past behaviors and changes in those activities through time. However that knowledge is built from careful interpretation of each precious archaeological site we have the privilege to examine and sample. It requires diverse knowledge of the methods we current have or can develop to better understand the many complex ways that what has been preserved is structured as a static record of formerly dynamic events from a great diversity of past human behaviors of interest-many of which leave no direct material signature.

I am not using the word 'theory' in a commonsensical way. I am actually using it exactly in the way you said. Radioactive decay is undoubtedly a theory. Cultural evolutionism is a (nowadays mostly dismissed) theory.

I am not saying that dating methods are theories. I am saying that all archaeological methods employ models of reality, which in turn embed theories. It's nothing new really, since I am taking these ideas from David Clarke and Jean-Claude Gardin (not really post-modernists).

Now, if I get you correctly, you are saying that chronology is a trivial operation and it is only a matter of doing it properly and having enough data. However there are some chronological controversies that have been debated for more than one century and we have plenty of data and good scholars for them, but no solution. My hypothesis is that chronology is not that trivial after all and that an epistemology of dating methods might help to build a method (an algorithm maybe) to disentangle long-standing chronological controversies.

I am suggesting that chronology is a low-level descriptive portion of archaeological research. Identifying time periods has no inherent explanatory power, it simply situates artifacts, features, and sites in some temporal relationship with each other and comparative data about other aspects of the archaeological record. Getting useful dates is simple a matter of careful excavation, sampling, and laboratory analyses. It is a methodological concern that must then be used in more sophisticated approaches to archaeological questions of relevance. Dates explain nothing by themselves.

I would not call radioactive decay a theory. Even though on a molecular level the process is stochastic, in a measurable sample of say C 14,there are so many molecules present, that any number of independent scientists, using instruments of comparable accuracy will always get the same result within the achievable repeatability of the instruments. On a macro scale ,over (linear) time, the exponential decay is predictable.

We do not fully understand how or why cosmic radiation varies- here we are in the realm of theory- but we have established empirically how C14 levels have fluctuated over the past. This fluctuation means however that there are certain periods e.g. the early dark ages, where the C 14 levels remain constant and so the method cannot determine a date within that period. There is no doubt that the time in that period was linear, but the methodology can only determine a range within a maximum and a minimum. This is not random, or uncertain. It is certain that the date of an object in the early middle ages cannot be determined more precisely than the technique always yields.

“Outliers” are not due to random or non-linear changes in the rate of decay of C 14. It is either caused by carbon contamination, other experimental or excavation error, or an error in the expectation or theory of the archaeologist. The most famous one being the “outlier” that the carbon dating of Stonehenge by Renfrew in the 1960‘s showed it to be far older than the Mycenaean civilisation. According to then current theory the expertise to build Stonehenge had to have come from the Mediterranean and Renfrew’s paper to (I think it was Antiquity?) was rejected during peer review. He only managed to get it published later in some obscure journal.

As it is often the case when I happen to discuss this kind of issues, one of the main communicative problems is the meaning of the word 'theory'. When I say radiocarbon dating is a 'theory' I don't mean that in the sense that it is uncertain or unreliable at any level. I use theory'' the way it is used in hard sciences, i.e. as the highest level of scientific inference (@Rusty Greaves) In this sense gravity is a theory. .It doesn't mean I doubt gravity. Nor I doubt radiocarbon dating. However we nearly never use it per se (to know when the pig from which our bone sample diedcomes from)i.e. and we often use it to date layers, phases, artefacts associated with the samples, etc... My question is related to the associations more that to the methods themselves.

I am sorry, the computer messed up the order of some words and sentences. I hope it's still understandable.

This is a terrible site It jumbles your words around as you are typing .

I looked online, in my dictionary and in the Oxford dictionary of Archaeology, and none of these sources define the word theory in terms of a “highest level of scientific enquiry” This may be the reason that you have the recurring communication problems. 😀

But if I can be argumentative for the moment. Calling radioactive decay a theory is in my view unnecessarily esoteric. I think there will be less room for misunderstanding if you describe Radioactive decay or gravity as a law of nature,rather than calling it a theory in the same context as theories like cultural evolution. The meaning of the phrase “law of nature” within a scientific context is clearly defined in the Oxford dictionary.

Johan, I appreciate your perspectives on this question. Theories explain large scale processes in the natural world, i.e., movement of objects, evolution, the structure of the universe, etc. I like your characterization of the physics & chemistry behind dating methods as laws of nature, it's just the nuts & bolts of how our dating methods work. I don't know if Maria's initial question also concerned the statistical models used to evaluate the raw data from these methods to determine a range of dates from any particular sample, but I think you and I are in agreement these are just archaeological methods and not any higher level of explanation about the archaeological record, our questions about the past, or hopes to better understand human behaviors and our evolution.

I remember clearly my very first lecture in the theory of archaeology ( I am a retired chemical engineer that went back to university to study archaeology) He said: "All of archaeology is theory" I was a bit taken aback with that but I can see his point.