Radiocarbon dating

Dating organic material by its remaining carbon-14, calibrated against tree rings; written as a calibrated range (cal BCE). It dates the death of the organism — the wood, the bone, the charcoal — not the object made from it, and it is rarely done on a collector's piece because it destroys the sample.

Sources

Renfrew, C. & Bahn, P. (2020). Archaeology: Theories, Methods and Practice, 8th ed. Thames & Hudson
Society for American Archaeology — Principles of Archaeological Ethics

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "Radiocarbon dating" (Glossary). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16. https://stratum.black/study/glossary/radiocarbon. Accessed 2026-09-21.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-radiocarbon,
  title        = {Radiocarbon dating},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/glossary/radiocarbon}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Glossary article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-16; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.