carbon dating

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carbon dating

car′bon-date′ v.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

carbon dating

(Archaeology) short for radiocarbon dating

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

carbon dating

See radiocarbon dating.

The American Heritage® Student Science Dictionary, Second Edition. Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

carbon dating

A technique used in determining the age of an archaeological find based on establishing how much it contains of carbon-14, which decays at a known rate.

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Noun

carbon dating - a chemical analysis used to determine the age of organic materials based on their content of the radioisotope carbon-14; believed to be reliable up to 40,000 years

carbon-14 dating, radiocarbon dating

dating, geological dating - use of chemical analysis to estimate the age of geological specimens

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Carbon dating of the finds show that they are much older than previously thought, and mean that previous theories that the area would be covered by the huge polar ice cap are wrong.

Polar ice cap during last Ice Age may not have been as extensive as previously thought

So, Chazine and his colleagues used carbon dating on the calcite coating the paintings.

Dating ancient paintings in the caves of Borneo

Carbon dating showed that the shrub, called King's Holly, was 43,000 years old.

THE 43,000 YEAR OLD PLANT

"Radioactive carbon dating shows that most of the carbon dioxide currently emitted by thawing soils in Alaska was formed and frozen thousands of years ago.

Super-size deposits of frozen carbon in Arctic a growing threat to climate

Carbon dating of sediments recently dug from the bottoms of Big Stone Lake and Traverse Lake in Minnesota suggest that Lake Agassiz' northwestern outlet was active for no more than 400 years.

Once upon a lake: the life, times, and demise of the world's largest lake

And they have called for the debate that has raged over the authenticity of the Turin Shroud, fuelled in 1988 after carbon dating proved that it did not date back to before the 13th century, to end once and for all.

Chapel may hold key to Shroud

The team's carbon dating suggests charcoal and bone samples obtained from the site are 21,000 to 13,800 years old, whereas those located just above and below the pottery shards are about 18,000 years old.

Archaeologists find earliest evidence for pottery making in China

After carbon dating confirmed the skeleton's age at around 9,500 years, scientific interest in the anomalous find intensified.

Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans

With the help of carbon dating and analysis of tree rings, they discovered and dated previously unknown droughts.

Rainmaker ritual helps date droughts in Iron Age Africa

Although the carbon dating now shows a period of vacancy 19,000 to 14,000 years ago in On Your Knees Cave, Heaton says, local geology indicates that the cave wasn't disturbed by glaciers during that time.

The last ice age wasn't totally icy

Radiocarbon dates for one piece of charcoal and four shell samples from this soil indicate that their age exceeds the limit of carbon dating, which goes back about 40,000 years.

Cave finds make point about early humans

Carbon dating of the baskets suggests that the contents are about 350 years old, says Toll.