Editing Style (visual arts) (section)

==Style in archaeology==
[[File:1911 Britannica-Archaeology-Palaeolithic.png|thumb|right|[[Paleolithic]] stone tools grouped by period]]

In [[archaeology]], despite modern techniques like [[radiocarbon dating]], period or cultural style remains a crucial tool in the identification and [[Dating methodologies in archaeology|dating]] not only of works of art but all classes of [[archaeological artefact]], including purely functional ones (ignoring the question of whether purely functional artefacts exist).<ref>[[George Kubler|Kubler, George]] (1962). ''The Shape of Time : Remarks on the History of Things''. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.Kubler, p. 14: "human products always incorporate both utility and art in varying mixtures, and no object is conceivable without the admixture of both"; see also Alpers in Lang, 140</ref> The identification of individual styles of artists or [[artisan]]s has also been proposed in some cases even for remote periods such as the [[Ice Age art]] of the European [[Upper Paleolithic]].<ref>Bahn & Vertut, 89</ref>

As in art history, [[formal analysis]] of the [[morphology (archaeology)|morphology]] (shape) of individual artefacts is the starting point. This is used to construct [[Typology (archaeology)|typologies]] for different types of artefacts, and by the technique of [[Seriation (archaeology)|seriation]] a [[relative dating]] based on style for a site or group of sites is achieved where scientific [[absolute dating]] techniques cannot be used, in particular where only stone, ceramic or metal artefacts or remains are available, which is often the case.<ref>[[Thermoluminescence dating]] can be used for much ceramic material, and the developing method of [[Rehydroxylation dating]] may become widely used.</ref>  [[Sherd]]s of [[pottery]] are often very numerous in sites from many cultures and periods, and even small pieces may be confidently dated by their style. In contrast to recent trends in academic art history, the succession of schools of archaeological theory in the last century, from [[culture-historical archaeology]] to [[processual archaeology]] and finally the rise of [[post-processual archaeology]] in recent decades has not significantly reduced the importance of the study of style in archaeology, as a basis for classifying objects before further interpretation.<ref>Review by Mary Ann Levine of ''The Uses of Style in Archaeology'', edited by [[Margaret Conkey]] and Christine Hastorf (see further reading), pp. 779–780, ''American Antiquity'', Vol. 58, No. 4 (Oct., 1993), Society for American Archaeology, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/282229 JSTOR] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160920073427/http://www.jstor.org/stable/282229 |date=2016-09-20 }}</ref>