I do not think that window glass dating is real useful overall. I have used
all three formulas and found that Moir and Roenke work best, I prefer Moir's
formula. I could never really get good dates with Ball's formula and I work
in the Ohio Valley. The formulas only work for Antebellum sites. I have
not been able to get them to work at all for Post bellum sites. However, I
generally think that they are a waste of time in most cases. Ceramics are
much better way to date a site even with time lag problems. In certain
situations, I think there is some utility to using window glass dating, but
I don't employ it as a standard analysis.
Here are the references for the formulas:
Ball, Donald
1983 Approaches Towards the Dating of 19th Century Ohio Flat Glass.
Proceedings of the Symposium on Ohio Valley Urban and Historic Archaeology.
2:24-36.
Moir, Randall
1987 Socioeconomic and Chronometric Patterning of Window Glass. In
Historic Buildings, Material Culture, and People of the Prairie Margin,
edited by David H. Jurney and Randall W. Moir, pp.73-81. Richland Creek
Technical Series, Vol. 5. Southern Methodist University, Dallas.
Roenke, Karl
1978 Flat Glass: Its Uses as a Dating Tool for Nineteenth Century
Archaeological Sites in the Pacific Northwestand Elsewhere. Northwest
Anthropological Research Notes Memoir 4, Department of Sociology and
Anthropology, University of Idaho, Moscow.
Sorry I don't have the formulas handy at the moment. Let me know if you
can't get them and I will dig them out and give them to you.
M. Jay Stottman
Kentucky Archaeological Survey
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dylan Stapleton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 24, 2003 4:54 PM
Subject: Window glass dating formulas
> What is the consensus, if any, on the reliability of window glass dating
> regression formulas? Is there a preferred formula for use on mid to late
> 19th century West coast sites, i.e. Roenke 1978, Moir 1987, Ball 1982,
1983?
> I?ve requested Roenke?s article through interlibrary loan in order to
obtain
> his formula, but if anyone has or knows the formula and the accompanying
> reference table, could you please post it? Additionally, if anyone has
> access to alternative formulas please post along with the reference
> information. Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can give me.
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