Archaeology

  Carbon dating, also known as radiocarbon dating, is a method used to determine the age of an object containing organic material. This technique has been used for decades to date a variety of materials, including fossils, artifacts, and archaeological sites. Carbon dating works by measuring the amount of carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon, in a sample. Carbon-14 is produced in the atmosphere by cosmic rays and is taken up by plants during photosynthesis. When animals consume plants, they also absorb carbon-14, and when they die, the carbon-14 begins to decay at a known rate. By measuring the amount of carbon-14 in a sample, scientists can determine how long ago the organism that produced the material died. This dating method is based on the fact that carbon-14 decays over time into nitrogen-14, and the ratio of carbon-14 to nitrogen-14 can be used to determine the age of the sample. Carbon dating is a useful tool for dating materials that are up to about 50,000 years old. ...