Episode 34 - A Dating Show

Valentine's Day is upon us, and love is in the air-- love for relative and absolute dating methods, that is! Anna brings the science with C14 dating and its gang of radiometric friends, boggles minds with flipped magnetic poles and the last time archaeological material saw the sun, and finds some hot tree-ring takes in California. Meanwhile, Amber goes on a bit of a jag about ancient imperialism, makes a lot of jokes that even she hates, embraces the nihilism of climate change, and attempts to explain the law of superposition via cake. So, the usual— but that’s why you love us!

To learn even more about these dating methods and examples of their use, check out:

Dating in Archaeology (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

10 Chronometric Methods in Paleoanthropology (Handbook of Paleoanthropology, downloaded via ResearchGate)

Everything Worth Knowing About ... Scientific Dating Methods (Discover)

Redwood Cross-Section of Time (Roadside America) more like RUDE-side America, amirite?

Explainer: what is radiocarbon dating and how does it work? (The Conversation)

What is OSL? (Utah State University)

K-12 Resources about Radiocarbon Dating (C14Dating.com)

Research illuminates inaccuracies in radiocarbon dating (Phys.org)

Radiocarbon, The Calibration Curve and Scythian Chronology (Impact of the Environment on Human Migration in Eurasia, downloaded via Wayback Machine)

Correlating the Ancient Maya and Modern European Calendars with High-Precision AMS 14C Dating (Scientific Reports)

The bible and radiocarbon dating: Archaeology, text and science (via ResearchGate)

The Iron Age Architecture at Hasanlu: An Essay (Expedition)

East of Assyria? Hasanlu and the problem of Assyrianization, in Imperial Peripheries in the Neo-Assyrian Period (via Academia.edu)

Global Warming Could Make Carbon Dating Impossible (The Atlantic)

Dating Methods in Historical Archaeology (Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology)

A Comparison and Review of Window Glass Analysis Approaches in Historical Archaeology (Technical Briefs in Historical Archaeology)

Photo credit: Chris Schnepf, University of Idaho. “Crosscut of a 357 year-old Pinus ponderosa tree, with five fire scars: 1683, 1693, 1747, 1795, and 1861,” licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States license. This image is Image Number 1171013 at Forestry Images, a source for forest health, natural resources and silviculture images operated by The Bugwood Network at the University of Georgia and the USDA Forest Service.