How to teach an old dog new tricks: a new approach on dating unstratified archaeological features from outdated excavations

When analysing past excavations, the possible lack of information on stratigraphy of small finds can lead to difficulties in dating features of settlements such as building periods or destruction layers. While there can be many factors, the most common reasons are outdated excavation methods, lost written documentation or problems in storage. Studying the material from excavations at the so-called (sic)Gmeinerwiese < in Brigantium/Bregenz, Austria undertaken in 1974 suffered from a combination of these causes, which led to a lack of sound stratigraphical information. However, adapting techniques commonly used for numismatic analyses enabled the gathering of sufficient information to gain a better understanding of the sites' building periods. Furthermore, an approximate date of the buildings' destruction by fire could be obtained. Additionally, a second case study was undertaken using stratified and already analysed findings from Aguntum in Eastern Tyrol, Austria to verify the proposed methodology. The results are consistent with the stratigraphic evaluation, which indicates the functionality of this method.