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LoginRadiocarbon dating is a method of radiometric dating. Learn how archaeologists use carbon isotopes to find the age of organic materials at archaeological sites. For decades, people assumed that our ancestors started to make stone tools 2. But a study found something different. Stone tools discovered in Kenya were actually 3 million years old! This discovery pushed the development of stone tools back by years. It changed the whole story of human evolution! Knowing the age of an artifact can be key to understanding the history of a site, a group, a region, or even human history in general. People who study human history through physical remains are called archaeologists.
Cosmos » Earth. But how is it dated? What does radiometric dating actually mean? And what methods of dating can be used to date which kinds of items? Radiometric dating is a method of establishing how old something is — perhaps a wooden artefact, a rock, or a fossil — based on the presence of a radioactive isotope within it. The basic logic behind radiometric dating is that if you compare the presence of a radioactive isotope within a sample to its known abundance on Earth, and its known half-life its rate of decay , you can calculate the age of the sample. Radiometric dating is useful for finding the age of ancient things, because many radioactive materials decay at a slow rate.
Radiometric dating of rocks and minerals using naturally occurring, long-lived radioactive isotopes is troublesome for young-earth creationists because the techniques have provided overwhelming evidence of the antiquity of the earth and life. Some so-called creation scientists have attempted to show that radiometric dating does not work on theoretical grounds for example, Arndts and Overn ; Gill but such attempts invariably have fatal flaws see Dalrymple ; York and Dalrymple
Not sure what you're looking for? Browse the A-Z index. Archaeologists have two main ways to tell the age of sites and artifacts. Relative dating tells how old something is in relation to other objects, but cannot provide a year or specific date of use. In contrast, absolute dating provides a specific calendar year for the occupation of a site.
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