Anthropology › Section B · Methods › Topic B.2

Conservation, naturalism, and dating evidence

The great museum collections that anthropologists still use were built in the 19th century by people collecting nature and, controversially, collecting Indigenous cultures too. This topic looks at that history and then at the tools that put dates on what is collected, from pottery styles to the decay of carbon-14.

In this topic

  • Conservation and naturalism
  • Indigenous peoples in natural history museums
  • Salvage anthropology
  • Relative dating
  • Radiocarbon dating
  • Worked example: dating a charred seed
  • Calibration and AMS
  • Dendrochronology
  • Methods for older material
  • Worked example: bracketing a fossil
  • Common mistakes to avoid
  • Key takeaways

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