: Radiocarbon Dating . Willard F. Libby.

Fifty Years of Radiocarbon Dating

The history of radiocarbon dating through the 20th century is presented, focusing on the work of Willard F. Libby, who introduced radiocarbon dating in 1949, and its application during the following 50 years. Topics include an explanation of radiocarbon dating, by which the age of organic matter can be determined; difficulties Libby encountered in developing processes for accurate measurements;...

Radiocarbon Dating.

Radiocarbon Dating of Ground Water

Radiocarbon dating of ground water is used in combination with the primary measurements of classical hydrological and chemical analyses. Radiocarbon dating will produce the best results when it involves multiple measurements or sequential sampling. The most useful data come from these comparisons and not from absolute ages. In the case of multiple measurements, the apparent ages of the ground w...

Radiocarbon Dating: The Continuing Revolution

Radiocarbon (I4C) dating, now in its fifth decade of general use, continues to be the most widely employed method of inferring chronometric age for late Pleistocene and Holocene age materials recovered from archeological contexts. Over the last decade, several technical advances in I4C studies have provided contexts for a number of significant applications in archeology that were previously eit...

Radiocarbon Dating of Mollusk Shells: A Reply.

grassland and not going anywhere are no longer cowpaths. The photograph shows the currently used paths in the grassland bowed toward the lower left by encroaching shrubs while faint scars above reveal where the paths once passed. In the grassland these old paths are obliterated by grass; in the shrub zone they remain bare and become broader. The great broad white zones of bare ground both insid...