radiocarbon dating
radiocarbon dating [Te].A technique for determining the absolute date of organic matter developed by Willard LIBBY in 1949 and based on the fact that all living organisms contain a small but constant proportion of the radioactive isotope of carbon, 14C. When the organism dies the 14C is no longer replenished from the environment and what is present at the time of death decays at a constant rate. The half-life of 14C was calculated by Libby as being 5568 years. By measuring the radioactivity of the carbon remaining in a specimen its age can be calculated; radiocarbon determinations (usually expressed as an age BP or as RCYBP) have to be calibrated using curves derived from tree-ring chronologies to give calendar dates (usually expressed as bc/ad or cal.bc/cal.ad). Radiocarbon dating is useful back to about 70 000 years ago.
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