Like by looking at a certain artefact scientists can determine that it is from 2100 years ago, how are they so sure of the accuracy.
In: Chemistry
The other answers explain how carbon dating works. It assumes the carbon levels have stayed the same so you can also ask, “Is that actually true? And if not, wouldn’t you get a wrong age?” The answers are mostly yes and slightly.
This is where *calibration* comes in. Often there are multiple ways to date things and in principle they should agree with each other. So you can use one method to validate an other. The result is curves like this: [https://i.imgur.com/Harn3TF.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Harn3TF.jpg). The black line is what it *should* be if the carbon amount had indeed stayed the same throughout history. You can see that it doesn’t, but that the offset with other methods is roughly the same each time. If it didn’t work at all, the data would be all over the place.
All this means is that you can correct for the assumptions in your method. It’s a bit like using a slow clock: you can still use it if you know exactly by how much it is slow.
Latest Answers