answersLogoWhite

0

Only the seed could be effectively dated using C14. The bone, at one million years old, is far outside the range for which carbon dating is effective. Once the Carbon 14 within a sample has decayed significantly it becomes impossible to measure the remaining amount and establish an age. Currently, using modern methods we can date items using carbon dating up to around 60,000 years before present.

The seed, superficially would be a good candidate for carbon dating, however because of it's age and the process of calibrating radiocarbon dates into calender years there would be quite a large range of dates. If you were to test the seed (assuming is was 500years old) a calibrated age would likely be something like 590-400 years before present with a 95% chance of the age falling within that range, or 430-550 years before present with a 68% chance of the age falling within that range.

It is impossible to give a perfect answer to this question without actually having a sample and testing it. Quite often it is possible to be more specific than this, and you typically find dates given within a few decades, although there are variations. When results from a sample come back from a laboratory you may be given several date ranges, each with an associated probability. It is up to the researcher which they feel is accurate enough to include in publication or interpretation.

User Avatar

Wiki User

15y ago

What else can I help you with?

Continue Learning about Archaeology

Can a stone arrowhead be dated by carbon-14?

Carbon-14 dating is not typically used for dating stone arrowheads because carbon dating is primarily used for organic materials like bone or wood. Stone arrowheads themselves do not contain carbon-14, so an alternative dating method, like thermoluminescence dating, would be more suitable for dating stone artifacts.


What is a worked example of carbon dating?

Sure! Let's say we have a sample of a once-living material, like a piece of wood, and we want to determine its age using carbon dating. By measuring the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the sample and comparing it to the known half-life of carbon-14 (about 5,730 years), we can calculate the approximate age of the sample. This method is effective for dating materials up to about 50,000 years old.


Which element is used for archaeological discoveries?

Carbon-14 dating is commonly used in archaeology to determine the age of organic materials, such as bone and charcoal. This method measures the radioactive decay of carbon-14 isotopes in the sample to estimate its age.


What materials can carbon dating be used to date?

Carbon dating can be used to date organic materials that were once part of a living organism, such as wood, bone, charcoal, and plant remains. It is most commonly used on objects that are less than 50,000 years old.


Could radiocarbon dating be used to determine the age of a stone artifact?

Radiocarbon dating is typically used to date organic materials that were once alive, like wood or bone, but not stone artifacts. Stones do not contain carbon that can be dated, so alternative methods, such as luminescence dating or stratigraphic analysis, would be more appropriate for determining their age.

Related Questions

Can a stone arrowhead be dated by carbon-14?

Carbon-14 dating is not typically used for dating stone arrowheads because carbon dating is primarily used for organic materials like bone or wood. Stone arrowheads themselves do not contain carbon-14, so an alternative dating method, like thermoluminescence dating, would be more suitable for dating stone artifacts.


What metals can you carbon date?

Carbon dating is typically used on organic materials containing carbon, such as wood, bone, cloth, and paper. Metals cannot be directly carbon dated because they do not contain carbon.


What method of dating bone would yield the most accurate results?

Radiocarbon dating is the most commonly used method for dating bones due to its accuracy and reliability for relatively recent samples (up to about 50,000 years ago). Other methods, such as amino acid dating and DNA analysis, can also be used to date bones but may have limitations in terms of accuracy and timeframe.


Which item could be dated using radiocarbon dating?

Carbon dating can be used on material which was living in the last few tens of thousands of years, The first kind are datings of things that should't be carbon dated are charcol and wood.


What is a worked example of carbon dating?

Sure! Let's say we have a sample of a once-living material, like a piece of wood, and we want to determine its age using carbon dating. By measuring the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in the sample and comparing it to the known half-life of carbon-14 (about 5,730 years), we can calculate the approximate age of the sample. This method is effective for dating materials up to about 50,000 years old.


What method is used to find the age of a bone fragment?

radioactive dating, usually using the carbon-14 method, but this method can't be used for bones more than 50 or 60 thousand years old. -hope this helps. our teacher just taught us this today in 8th grade, its pretty hard so good luck.


Why is carbon 14 used in radioactive dating?

Carbon-14 dating is a way of determining the age of certain archaeological artifacts of a biological origin up to about 50,000 years old. It is used in dating things such as bone, cloth, wood and plant fibers that were created in the relatively recent past by human activities.


Why is carbon dating ineffective in determining the age of a dinosaur bone?

Carbon-14 isotope dating is only effective up to about 70,000 years. Dinosaur bones are at least 65 million years old. Elements with much longer half-lives are used to radiometrically date rock associated with dinosaur remains.


Which element is used for archaeological discoveries?

Carbon-14 dating is commonly used in archaeology to determine the age of organic materials, such as bone and charcoal. This method measures the radioactive decay of carbon-14 isotopes in the sample to estimate its age.


Accuracy of bonescan diagnosing osteoarthritis?

3D bone scans are become very popular because of their accuracy in this field.


What could carbon-14 dating be used?

Short Answer:Carbon 14 dating can only be used on objects which were once living things (plant or animal). Typically, the object must be less than 50,000 or so years old. Otherwise the carbon 14 has decayed to such a low level that the detection becomes difficult.More:Living creatures constantly exchange carbon in their bodies with carbon from the atmosphere and so the isotopic concentration of carbon 14 in a plant or animal is the same as the concentration of the atmosphere. That stops, of course, when the creature dies. Since carbon 14 is radioactive, the fraction of carbon 14 in the remains of the creature will decrease over thousands of years. By measuring how much is left, the date the the creature died can be measured with some degree of accuracy.


Why cant geologist use the carbon-14 method to date igneous rock?

Geologists cannot use the carbon-14 method to date igneous rock because carbon-14 dating is effective only for organic materials, such as wood or bone, that contain carbon. Igneous rocks, formed from the cooling and solidification of magma or lava, do not contain organic carbon and therefore do not incorporate carbon-14 during their formation. Instead, geologists typically use radiometric dating methods involving isotopes of elements like uranium or potassium, which are suitable for dating the age of igneous rocks.