In the past, relative dating methods often were the only ones available to paleoanthropologists.

Clasts at the surface and within the soil profile weather continuously, and quantification of the degree of their decay permits recognition of age differences.

The use of multiple relative dating (RD) techniques, developed for the study of glacial deposits, makes use of these techniques where possible, but depends heavily on the additional comparison of the results of surface processes that act continuously and more or less uniformly after accumulation is complete.

For sediments at the surface that have not been buried, the most important of these processes are weathering and morphological alteration.

In mountains adjacent to deserts, a veneer of loess accumulates slowly, and is thicker on older alpine deposits.

Quantification of gully development provides still another morphometric approach to dating young sediments.