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Radiocarbon Dating: Radiocarbon Dates
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Radiocarbon dating is based on the continuous decay of the radioactive isotope of carbon, C-14. Radiocarbon is incorporated into all living organisms in proportion to its concentration in the environment. When an organism dies, carbon is no longer incorporated into its tissues, but the radiocarbon present continues to decay at a known rate.
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How does radiocarbon dating differ from radioactive dating? The short answer is that it doesn't. Radiocarbon dating is a type of radioactive dating that makes use of the radioactive decay of Carbon-14. All radioactive dating techniques share two basic concepts. First, that the radioactive element (whatever it happens to be) enters into a substance in the same ratio that is found in the environment. When the radioactive element starts to decay, that ratio will change.
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Radiocarbon dating revolutionised the study of prehistory. Then it was discovered you had to calibrate dates or you could be centuries out. Calibration was the second radiocarbon revolution. Now there is a third.
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The results of the radiocarbon dating of the Shroud of Turin(1) caused many who believed that the cloth which was tested could no longer be considered the authentic burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. Further, a number of researchers who had devoted a substantial portion of their research time on issues related to the Shroud saw their funding evaporate or lost further interest. For a number of years, interest in the Shroud waned, only to revive in the late 1990’s in anticipation of two public viewings of the Shroud, one in 1998 and the other in 2000. Further, there have been several proposals in recent years(2)(3) that have offered the possibility that the radiocarbon dating may have been distorted by physical or biological agents.
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The British Museum, selected the Chi^2 to be the criterion for the assessment of the radiocarbon dating results for the Shroud. The MAXIMUM Chi^2 test value for 95% confidence and (3-1) degrees of freedom is 5.99. Theoretically, if the calculated Chi^2 test value could have occurred only by chance, with a probability LESS than that selected, then the set of data would be considered as being DIFFERENT. In practice : Any Chi^2 test value LARGER than 5.99, excludes the claimed 95 % confidence.
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The most commonly used convention in radiocarbon dating is the unit bp (before present). 'Present' referring to the year 1950 AD. Thus, when a radiocarbon lab reports an age of 10000 years bp, they are implying that the fossil would have died 10000 years before 1950 AD if the percentage of C14 present in the atmosphere 10000 years ago was the same as that in 1950 AD. However researchers know that this is not true, and have labored hard to calibrate the unit bp to true calendar years. This convention is necessary to avoid the confusion that would arise if different labs used different conventions.
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Radiocarbon Dates