Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-21T18:41:38.715Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Stratigraphy and Seriation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

John Howland Rowe
John Howland Rowe*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley, Calif.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Stratigraphic interpretation rests on two principles: the principle of superposition and the principle that deposition units can be identified by cultural content. The sequence of deposition units derived from a case of superposition may not give a true cultural sequence if mixing, filling, or collecting has affected the cultural contents of the units. There are two kinds of seriation: evolutionary seriation, done on the basis of an assumed general law of cultural development, and similary seriation, done on the basis of similarities and differences in objects or deposition units compared. Similiary seriation assumes only that cultural change is normally gradual. Of the two kinds of seriation, only similiary seriation can give credible results. Some evidence of archaeological associations is necessary to control the possibility of non-gradual change resulting from sudden outside influence or archaism. If the conditions for success can be met, either stratigraphy or seriation can provide a credible sequence. Each method provides a check on the other; the most credible results are achieved by combining the two.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 26 , Issue 3Part1 , January 1961 , pp. 324 - 330
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, F. D. 1954. The Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences. Dover Publications, New York.Google Scholar
Bennett, W. C. 1953. Excavations at Wari, Ayacucho, Peru. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, No.49. New Haven.Google Scholar
Cornely, F. L. 1950. Prehistoria del territorio Diaguita chileno (provincias de Coquimbo y Atacama). Publicaciones de la Sociedad Arqueológica de La Serena, Boletín, No. 5, pp. 3–18. La Serena.Google Scholar
Cornely, F. L. 1956. Cultura Diaguita chilena y cultura de El Molle. Editorial del Pacífico, Santiago.Google Scholar
Dunbar, C. O., and Rodgers, John 1957. Principles of Stratigraphy. John Wiley and Sons, New York; Chapman and Hall, London.Google Scholar
Evans, John 1850. On the Date of British Coins. The Numismatic Chronicle and Journal of the Numismatic Society, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 127–37. London.Google Scholar
Fenton, C. L., and Fenton, M. A. 1952. Giants of Geology. Doubleday, Garden City.Google Scholar
Ford, J. A. 1949. Cultural Dating of Prehistoric Sites in Virú Valley, Peru. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 43, Part 1, pp. 29–89. New York.Google Scholar
Fox-Pitt-Rivers, A. H. L. 1875. On the Principles of Classification Adopted in the Arrangement of his Anthropological Collection, now Exhibited in the Bethnal Green Museum. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 4, pp. 293–308. London.Google Scholar
Fraser, A. D. 1935. Thomas Jefferson as Field Archaeologist. The Four Arts, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 3–4, 15. Richmond.Google Scholar
Heizer, R. F. (Editor) 1959. The Archaeologist at Work; A Source Book in Archaeological Method and Interpretation. Harper and Brothers, New York.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Thomas 1787. Notes on the State of Virginia, second English edition. John Stockdale, London.Google Scholar
Lathrap, D. W. (Editor) 1956. An Archaeological Classification of Culture Contact Situations. In “Seminars in Archaeology: 1955,” edited by Wauchope, Robert, pp. 1–30. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology, No. 11. Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Lehmann, J. G. 1756. Versuch einer Geschichte von Flö;tz-Gebürgen, betreffend deren Entstehung, Lage, darinne befindliche Metallen, Mineralien und Fossilien… . Klütersche Buchhandlung, Berlin.Google Scholar
Lisch, G. C. F. 1847. Der Verein für Lubeckische Geschichte. Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Geschichte, Band 7, pp. 377–81. Berlin.Google Scholar
Neaverson, Ernest 1955. Stratigraphical Palaeontology; A Study of Ancient Life Provinces, second edition. Clarendon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Phillips, Philip, Ford, J. A., and Griffin, J. B. 1951. Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, 1940–1947. Papers of the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Vol. 25. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Rowe, J. H. 1959. Archaeological Dating and Cultural Process. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 317–24. Albuquerque.Google Scholar
Stamp, L. D. 1934. An Introduction to Stratigraphy (British Isles), second edition. Thomas Murby & Co., London.Google Scholar