If in nothing else, they certainly could by fashion. Today that is much the same way we differentiate. Not just clothing, but what items are fashionable to own as well. World trade routes were established by then and there was a huge flow of goods coming to the Colonies. Today I can date any image from those three centuries very quickly based on clothing or hair. You also mentioned disco, which brings up being able to track time movement by music or dance popularity, something I know less about but would have been common knowledge to contemporaries.

Let's take something fashionable and isolate it- ladies shoes. I could easily give you a date within 5 years for a pair of shoes made between 1700 and 1900. I can also break them down into decades of influence that the people of the time would have seen. For example, a huge Turkish influence takes hold at the very end of the 1770s and becomes rapidly popular throughout the 1780s. You can see the toe shape of Turkish slippers in this pair of shoes, while this pair even has the pompoms. The "oriental" influence on ladies shoes is noted by Roland de la Platiére in Cordonnier from 1790. Once you reach the 1790s, Greek and Roman influence take over (reflective of the push for Democracy). Laced shoes inspired by the ancient boots worn become popular and eventually give way in the early 1800s to quite literal Roman style laced boots.

You could also look at the same time period in hair- the Pouf of the 1770s, Hedgehog of the 1780s, and the Grecian curls and turbans of the 1790s.

Of course, this is just a very small item to look at, when you include all fashionable things it becomes very easy for us today to discern decades. They certainly recognized these changes as well.

There's another thread from a while back with the same(ish) question I don't think it's going to give you the answers you're hoping for I’m afraid though. The consensus on that thread seemed to read that this is a relatively new phenomenon which is bought on by the wealth of teenagers after WW2. Before this Kids wanted to be like their parents (or weren't given a choice)

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1ndi5s/did_other_decades_experience_cultural/

This Life article explains the rise of the teenager in the post war years http://life.time.com/popular-culture/teenagers-a-1944-photo-essay-on-a-new-american-phenomenon/#8

I should note however that the way you split the decades down only really works on a local level (maybe a larger level if you’re from the US)

In Britain in the 80's it was post punk and new wave music we also start to see the beginning of Electronic Music

In Britain the 90’s were the years of the boy band and girls groups (quite the opposite to grunge)

So as you can imagine if you go further afield in the cultural spectrum I’m sure this would change dramatically and I’d hazard a guess that you could also find some examples where the Culture can't be so easily split by decades