Dave Frightens Me wrote:


Do you really use the word "sedation" in this context to indicate the
action of settling down ? I may be biased by the fact we in Italian
would use the word "insediamento" which would indicate both the action
of settling down, and a settlement as a place.


No. As someone mother-tongue English who also speaks Italian, I can
assure you that sedation only means medically drugged.

I know I've heard the word "sedation" used in archaeology in a way that
doesn't mean medically drugged.

Yup. From a Google search, it appears that the word refers to a dating
procedure or, at least, an ordering procedure. If you ignore the Google
links that obviously refer to the medical meaning and carefully screen
out links to sites that by coincidence include both the word
"archaeology" and "sedation" you'll still come up with enough links to
persuade naysayers that "sedation" has a meaning besides the medical one.

Here's a fragment from one Google link: "The main use of sedation in
archaeology is to determine temporal order." (I can't access the full
article in the journal AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST at Anthrosource.net.)

Here's another from the ANNUAL REVIEW OF ARCHAEOLOGY: "Dating Methods
9503... Sedation in archaeology..."

Happily, I did turn up one reasonably accessible link. The abstract of
the article "The Unitary Association Method of Relative Dating and Its
Application to Archaeological Data" that appears the in JOURNAL OF
ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHOD AND THEORY includes the following: "The Unitary
Association Method of Relative Dating is an alternative to seriation
methods that is less susceptible to spatial variation and offers
analytical strengths needed for regional chronological analyses." The
abstract doesn't include the word "sedation;" that word apparently is in
the complete article, but the Google link inludes the following from the
complete article, "Like all archaeological methods, UAM is not a
stand-alone procedure. There are times when sedation will be the best
way to determine the order..."

An abstract from the MIDCONTINENTAL JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY actually
includes the word "sedation": "Temporal variation in the morphology and
decoration of late Middle Archaic (ca. 6000-5000 B.P.) bone pins from
the middle Mississippi and lower Ohio River valleys is explored. A
preliminary chronology of pin morphology and decoration is proposed
based on sedation, radiocarbon dates, stratigraphy, associations between
engraved decoration and head morphology, and similarities in head shape
and cross section. Square-top pins appear to be the earliest forms,
occurring prior to 5500 B.P."

Karen Selwyn



I'm picking up a a link via Google in the