Serious question about the way we date pottery sherds

I spent 7 years cross-referencing pottery types from a site near Flagstaff based solely on rim shapes and decoration styles. Then a colleague ran a thermoluminescence test on 12 of my best samples and every single one came back 200 years older than I had guessed. Has anyone else had their whole chronology flipped by a simple lab test?

3 comments

3 Comments

susan_adams1mo ago

My shell midden dates got pushed back 600 years by radiocarbon, still bitter about it.

hollywhite1mo ago

Remember when my dog ate a 2000 year old bone and I just let the vet think it was a milk bone.

west.casey1mo ago

still bitter about it" honestly same energy as that time contamination wrecked a whole season of my data lol. @hollywhite your dog debacle is legendary but at least that bone didn't ruin years of work.