How is the dating of older, inorganic things accomplished by?

Relative techniques were developed earlier in the history of archaeology as a profession and are considered less trustworthy than absolute ones. There are several different methods.

In stratigraphy, archaeologists assume that sites undergo stratification over time, leaving older layers beneath newer ones. Like a layer cake or slice of lasagna, a site’s lower layers are assumed to be older than those that lie above them. Archaeologists use that assumption, called the law of superposition, to help determine a relative chronology for the site itself. Then, they use contextual clues and absolute dating techniques to help point to the age of the artifacts found in each layer.