Measuring Time with Artifacts - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Measuring Time with Artifacts write by R. Lee Lyman. This book was released on 2006-01-01. Measuring Time with Artifacts available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Combining historical research with a lucid explication of archaeological methodology and reasoning, Measuring Time with Artifacts examines the origins and changing use of fundamental chronometric techniques and procedures and analyzes the different ways American archaeologists have studied changes in artifacts, sites, and peoples over time. In highlighting the underpinning ontology and epistemology of artifact-based chronometers?cultural transmission and how to measure it archaeologically?this volume covers issues such as why archaeologists used the cultural evolutionism of L. H. Morgan, E. B. Tylor, L. A. White, and others instead of biological evolutionism; why artifact classification played a critical role in the adoption of stratigraphic excavation; how the direct historical approach accomplished three analytical tasks at once; why cultural traits were important analytical units; why paleontological and archaeological methods sometimes mirror one another; how artifact classification influences chronometric method; and how graphs illustrate change in artifacts over time. An understanding of the history of artifact-based chronometers enables us to understand how we know what we think we know about the past, ensures against modern misapplication of the methods, and sheds light on the reasoning behind archaeologists' actions during the first half of the twentieth century.
Unit Issues in Archaeology
Unit Issues in Archaeology - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Unit Issues in Archaeology write by Ann Felice Ramenofsky. This book was released on 1998. Unit Issues in Archaeology available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This volume emphasizes one aspect of scientific method: units of measure and their construction as applied to archaeology. Attributes, artifact classes, locational designations, temporal periods, sampling universes, culture stages, and geographic regions are all examples of constructed units.
Time and Clocks
Time and Clocks - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Time and Clocks write by Sir Henry Hardinge Cunynghame. This book was released on 1906. Time and Clocks available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Seriation, Stratigraphy, and Index Fossils
Seriation, Stratigraphy, and Index Fossils - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Seriation, Stratigraphy, and Index Fossils write by Michael J. O'Brien. This book was released on 2007-05-08. Seriation, Stratigraphy, and Index Fossils available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. It is difficult for today's students of archaeology to imagine an era when chronometric dating methods were unavailable. However, even a casual perusal of the large body of literature that arose during the first half of the twentieth century reveals a battery of clever methods used to determine the relative ages of archaeological phenomena, often with considerable precision. Stratigraphic excavation is perhaps the best known of the various relative-dating methods used by prehistorians. Although there are several techniques of using artifacts from superposed strata to measure time, these are rarely if ever differentiated. Rather, common practice is to categorize them under the heading `stratigraphic excavation'. This text distinguishes among the several techniques and argues that stratigraphic excavation tends to result in discontinuous measures of time - a point little appreciated by modern archaeologists. Although not as well known as stratigraphic excavation, two other methods of relative dating have figured important in Americanist archaeology: seriation and the use of index fossils. The latter (like stratigraphic excavation) measures time discontinuously, while the former - in various guises - measures time continuously. Perhaps no other method used in archaeology is as misunderstood as seriation, and the authors provide detailed descriptions and examples of each of its three different techniques. Each method and technique of relative dating is placed in historical perspective, with particular focus on developments in North America, an approach that allows a more complete understanding of the methods described, both in terms of analytical technique and disciplinary history. This text will appeal to all archaeologists, from graduate students to seasoned professionals, who want to learn more about the backbone of archaeological dating.
Artifacts in Digital Coincidence Timing
Artifacts in Digital Coincidence Timing - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Artifacts in Digital Coincidence Timing write by . This book was released on 2014. Artifacts in Digital Coincidence Timing available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Digital methods are becoming increasingly popular for measuring time differences, and are the de facto standard in PET cameras. These methods usually include a master system clock and a (digital) arrival time estimate for each detector that is obtained by comparing the detector output signal to some reference portion of this clock (such as the rising edge). Time differences between detector signals are then obtained by subtracting the digitized estimates from a detector pair. A number of different methods can be used to generate the digitized arrival time of the detector output, such as sending a discriminator output into a time to digital converter (TDC) or digitizing the waveform and applying a more sophisticated algorithm to extract a timing estimator. All measurement methods are subject to error, and one generally wants to minimize these errors and so optimize the timing resolution. A common method for optimizing timing methods is to measure the coincidence timing resolution between two timing signals whose time difference should be constant (such as detecting gammas from positron annihilation) and selecting the method that minimizes the width of the distribution (i.e. the timing resolution). Unfortunately, a common form of error (a nonlinear transfer function) leads to artifacts that artificially narrow this resolution, which can lead to erroneous selection of the 'optimal' method. In conclusion, the purpose of this note is to demonstrate the origin of this artifact and suggest that caution should be used when optimizing time digitization systems solely on timing resolution minimization.
