1) However, when archaeologists want know the absolute date of a site, they can often go beyond simple stratigraphy.
2) Historical records, coins, and other date-bearing objects can help - if they exist. But even prehistoric sites contain records - written in nature's hand.
3) For example, tree ring, Dendrochronology (literally, ―tree time‖) dates wooden artefacts by matching their ring patterns to known records, which, in some areas of the world, span several thousand years.
4) The series of strata in an archaeological dig enables an excavator to date recovered objects relatively, if not absolutely.
