-from Authors TY - JOURT1 - Accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating of rock varnish AU - Dorn, R.

Experiments on sample collection, the effect of different individuals preparing samples, the influence of different chemical-extraction procedures, the incorporation of carbonate detritus, possible contamination from rock underlying varnish, the role of bio-geochemical erosion of varnish, and other influences reveal procedures that yield reproducible results.

C dating of rock varnish provides minimum-limiting ages for landforms and archaeological artifacts in arid and semiarid lands that are undatable by conventional radiocarbon methods.

Experiments on sample collection, the effect of different individuals preparing samples, the influence of different chemical-extraction procedures, the incorporation of carbonate detritus, possible contamination from rock underlying varnish, the role of bio-geochemical erosion of varnish, and other influences reveal procedures that yield reproducible results.

PY - 1989Y1 - 1989N2 - Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating of rock varnish provides minimum-limiting ages for landforms and archaeological artifacts in arid and semiarid lands that are undatable by conventional radiocarbon methods.

C is created in the atmosphere by cosmic radiation and is taken up by plants and animals as long as they live.

The idea of scientifically dating the shroud had first been proposed in the 1960s, but permission had been refused because the procedure at the time would have required the destruction of too much fabric (almost 0.05 sq m ≅ 0.538 sq ft). P.), which involved about 30 scientists of various religious faiths, including non-Christians. Testore performed the weighting operations, while Riggi made the actual cut.

Upon death, the isotope begins to decay and after 5730±40 years half of it is gone.

The C-14 method cannot be used on material more than about 50,000 years old because of this short half-life.

Desmond Clark (1979:7) observed that without radiocarbon dating "we would still be foundering in a sea of imprecisions sometime bred of inspired guesswork but more often of imaginative speculation." And as Colin Renfrew (1973) aptly noted over 30 years ago, the "Radiocarbon Revolution" transformed how archaeologists could interpret the past and track cultural changes through a period in human history where we see among other things the massive migration of peoples settling virtually every major region of the world, the transition from hunting and gathering to more intensive forms of food production, and the rise of city-states.

However, as with any dating technique there are limits to the kinds of things that can be satisfactorily dated, levels of precision and accuracy, age range constraints, and different levels of susceptibility to contamination.