Beyond radiocarbon: just exactly how archaeologists date artefacts. Kate Ravilious describes.
Whenever carbon relationship is not dependable, researchers move to other methods. However they could be controversial – and rewrite history that is human.

Scraping around in a cave in the center of nowhere, a bone is found by you. How will you determine if it is the stays of an ancient animal that stomped the land tens and thousands of years back or a discarded scrap from the cooking fire only some 100 years straight right back?
An archaeologist’s staple is radiocarbon dating: judging the chronilogical age of a sample that is organic its carbon-14 – also called radiocarbon – content.
Around 99% of carbon in the world is carbon-12 – atoms with six protons and six neutrons in its nucleus. Radiocarbon can be an isotope with two additional neutrons, developed by cosmic rays reaching nitrogen in Earth’s atmosphere.
Whenever an animal or plant is alive, it constantly replenishes trace levels of radiocarbon with its cells.
But as soon as it dies, forget about fresh radiocarbon is absorbed, and what’s left begins to decay.
The half-life of radiocarbon is about 5,730 years, meaning after 5,730 years, just 1 / 2 of the initial number of isotope stays. (more…)