An Educational Activity for Home or Classroom
Introduction | Activity | Vocabulary
Archaeologists sometimes find artifacts in a feature, such as a trash pit, posthole or foundation trench, which was filled with soil and artifacts at one time.
Certain objects in an assemblage can be used to determine the date of the layer or area of the site in which these artifacts were found. The artifacts in each assemblage were thrown away some time after the most recent artifacts were manufactured. This is called the terminus post quem or "date after which." Archaeologists determine this date in order to understand when the site or feature was created.
Read the paragraph below and look at the pictures of five artifacts with varying dates. Some artifacts can help provide a terminus post quem, while others may not.
If you went to the dump and found a bag of trash with several artifacts inside, you might be able to tell when the trash bag was tied up and thrown away. Some of the artifacts inside might have been used for many years before being thrown away. Answer the questions below to date your assemblage.
- What is the date range of the artifacts?
- What is the terminus post quem of the assemblage?
Artifact: An object made or modified by people.
Assemblage: A group of artifacts which were found together.
Feature: A distinct physical aspect of a site which is treated as a separate entity, for example, a trash pit or well. Each feature is recorded and analyzed separately (i.e., not grouping the artifacts with those found in surrounding soil layers.)
Terminus Post Quem: Latin for 'the date after which'; earliest potential date for an artifact assemblage based on the earliest date of manufacture of the most recent artifact in the assemblage.
