16 - Chronology

Summary

Introduction

Pottery and dating are inextricably linked in archaeology, or at least in the minds of those involved in it. This link grew up in the typological phase, when sherds were treated as type-fossils of particular periods or phases (Chapter 1). It has sometimes appeared to have been submerged in the flood of interests that marked the contextual phase, but has remained at or just below the surface of archaeological thought. The advent and/or wider application of techniques such as ¹⁴C dating and dendrochronology have not significantly reduced the need for ceramic-based chronologies. A majority of excavation reports (83 percent in a survey of Romano-British site reports, see Fulford and Huddleston 1991, 5) continue to employ, to some extent at least, dates derived from the study of ceramics.

The abundance of pottery and its multiplicity of form, fabric and decoration, as much as the vast literature on the material, conspire to make pottery, in many ways, the ideal medium for carrying chronological information. Dating evidence acquired at one site or context, perhaps an association between a pottery type and a historically-dated event such as a destruction horizon (e.g. the Boudiccan destruction level of AD 61, see Millett 1987), may be attached to the pot, or an element such as its form, decoration or fabric. Its appearance may subsequently be employed to date other contexts, where other pottery types may be dated by secondary association.