Practice question · Multiple choice
A pit cut through three layers contains a coin of 200 CE. Why does the coin date the pit rather than the layers it cuts?
Hints
- Which existed first, the layers or the hole through them?
- Ask what the FILL of a pit dates.
Show the answer
B. Because the cut must be younger than everything it passes through
Why
The digger is younger than the dug. The coin gives a terminus post quem for the fill, which post-dates the cut, and says nothing about when the sliced layers formed.
Practise Stratigraphy and Relative Dating
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Stratigraphy and Relative Dating
- Replay this section’s formation. Order the events from first to last.
- Match each stratigraphic term to its definition.
- Each observation gives a terminus post quem or a terminus ante quem for the wall. Sort them.
- The law of superposition says lower layers are older. Give a situation where a strict reading of it produces…
- An object lying deeper than another can still be the younger of the two.
- Which processes can put OLDER objects into YOUNGER deposits?