3 ms·

> When it comes to figuring out how old something is, archaeologists are interested in one element in particular: uranium. I though fossils were dated with Car

> When it comes to figuring out how old something is, archaeologists are interested in one element in particular: uranium. I though fossils were dated with Carbon-14. Did that change?

ergothus 7y ago
C14 dating loses precision dramatically past a certain age (~50k years, IIRC), because of the nature of half-lives. Since this is in the 200k range, C14 wouldn't be the go-to.
kwk1 7y ago
Carbon dating is merely one technique in the field of radioisotope dating.