The Impact of Radiocarbon Dating on Old World Archaeology: past Achievements and Future Expectations

During the last five decades, traditional 14C dating techniques have made numerous contributions to the archaeology of the Old World. These are evidenced in a vast literature that reports and discusses the evolution of social and cultural entities recorded from over the last 40,000 years. Terminologies may vary across Eurasia and Africa, but in the most encompassing definitions, this is a world that shifted from foraging lifestyles to farming and herding modes of production, which were then followed by the emergence of urbanism and the ensuing industrial revolution.