Fired-clay materials such as brick, tile and ceramic artefacts are found widely in archaeological deposits. The slow progressive chemical recombination of ceramics with environmental moisture (rehydroxylation) provides the basis for archaeological dating. Rehydroxylation rates are described by a (time)1/4 power law. A ceramic sample may be dated by first heating it to determine its lifetime water mass gain, and then exposing it to water vapour to measure its mass gain rate and hence its individual rehydroxylation kinetic constant. The kinetic constant depends on temperature. Mean lifetime temperatures are estimated from historical meteorological data. Calculated ages of samples of established provenance from Roman to modern dates agree excellently with assigned (known) ages. This agreement shows that the power law holds precisely on millennial time scales. The power law exponent is accurately 1 4, consistent with the theory of fractional (anomalous) ‘single-file’ diffusion.

Researchers in the UK have created a new way of dating archaeological artefacts that involves heating ancient pots to unlock their internal clocks. The method relies on the fact that fired clay ceramics — like bricks, tile and pottery — start to chemically combine with water as soon as they are exposed to the atmosphere.

H. floresiensis existed from before 38,000 years ago (kyr) until at least 18 kyr.

New Homo species had been found: Homo floresiensis.