Physical methods in archaeology

Ilia Penev

Abstract

For the second part of the XX century is very typical originating of new interdisciplinary scientific trends. The experimental and theoretical methods of physics and chemistry, computing methods of mathematics and others are involved in medicine, biology, social sciences, history, archaeology and etc. The common is, that new methods are removing old qualitative (descriptive)  with a new quantitative ones,  giving possibility for new and more reliable information in many cases. A new discipline appears, archaeometry, which is unifying different methods of natural sciences for the goals of archaeology. There are methods for discovering of antic sites and artifacts on and under the surface, methods for dating of organic, ceramic and minerals and methods for analyzing of  composition of artifacts, including the technology of their production and origin of the raw materials. For all this methods are used electromagnetic rays in radio, infrared and visible diapasons, x-ray and gamma-rays, analysis of decay of radioactive isotopes and irradiation with neutrons.