News tagged with radiocarbon
Germany may be birthplace of European music and art
The remains of the world's oldest musical instruments and human figurines suggest that music and artistic depictions of the human form may have first developed in Germany around 40,000 years ago, say researchers.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 29, 2012 |
3.9 / 5 (7) |
5
Oldest Jewish archaeological evidence on the Iberian Peninsula
German archaeologists of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena found one of the oldest archaeological evidence so far of Jewish Culture on the Iberian Peninsula at an excavation site in the south of Portugal, ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 25, 2012 |
4.2 / 5 (6) |
12
Experts determine age of book 'nobody can read'
(PhysOrg.com) -- While enthusiasts across the world pored over the Voynich manuscript, one of the most mysterious writings ever found – penned by an unknown author in a language no one understands – ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Feb 10, 2011 |
4.3 / 5 (80) |
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Rock analysis suggests France cave art is 'oldest'
Experts have long debated whether the sophisticated animal drawings in a famous French cave are indeed the oldest of their kind in the world, and a study out Monday suggests that yes, they are.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 07, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (17) |
3
Glastonbury Abbey excavations reveal Saxon glass industry
(Phys.org) -- New research led by the University of Reading has revealed that finds at Glastonbury Abbey provide the earliest archaeological evidence of glass-making in Britain.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 08, 2012 |
4 / 5 (4) |
0
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Neanderthals died out earlier than originally believed
(PhysOrg.com) -- According to a newly released report in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a newly refined method of radiocarbon dating has found that Neanderthals died off much earlier than o ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 10, 2011 |
4.5 / 5 (14) |
24
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Oldest subarctic North American human remains found
(PhysOrg.com) -- A newly excavated archaeological site in Alaska contains the cremated remains of one of the earliest inhabitants of North America. These remains may provide rare insights into the burial ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Feb 24, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
23
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Dog skull dates back 33,000 years
If you think a Chihuahua doesn't have much in common with a Rottweiler, you might be on to something.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jan 23, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (15) |
3
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What the locals ate 10,000 years ago
BYU archaeologists find a Utah site occupied by humans 11,000 years ago.The researchers documented a variety of dishes the people dined on back then.Grind stones for milling small seeds appeared 10,000 years ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Aug 23, 2010 |
4.1 / 5 (13) |
1
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Otago researchers delve into enigmatic burial rituals
University of Otago researchers working in remote Cambodian mountains are shedding new light on the lost history of an unidentified people by studying their enigmatic burial rituals.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
May 09, 2012 |
4 / 5 (1) |
0
Scientists detect huge carbon 'burp' that helped end last ice age
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have found the possible source of a huge carbon dioxide 'burp' that happened some 18,000 years ago and which helped to end the last ice age.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
May 27, 2010 |
3.7 / 5 (31) |
18
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World's Oldest Leather Shoe Found in Armenia
(PhysOrg.com) -- A perfectly preserved shoe, 1,000 years older than the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt and 400 years older than Stonehenge in the UK, has been found in a cave in Armenia.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jun 09, 2010 |
4.9 / 5 (18) |
9
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Study gives clues about carbon dioxide patterns at end of Ice Age
(PhysOrg.com) -- New University of Florida research puts to rest the mystery of where old carbon was stored during the last glacial period. It turns out it ended up in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 25, 2010 |
4.5 / 5 (13) |
0
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Big quakes more frequent than thought on San Andreas fault
Earthquakes have rocked the powerful San Andreas fault that splits California far more often than previously thought, according to UC Irvine and Arizona State University researchers who have charted temblors there stretching ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Aug 20, 2010 |
4.5 / 5 (18) |
2
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New research suggests Neanderthals weren't stupid
(PhysOrg.com) -- Neanderthals used makeup and jewellery challenging the idea that they were cognitively inferior to early modern humans, according to research published in the Proceedings in the National Ac ...
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jan 11, 2010 |
4.6 / 5 (14) |
2
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Carbon-14
Carbon-14, 14C, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon discovered on February 27, 1940, by Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben at the University of California Radiation Laboratory in Berkeley, though its existence had been suggested already in 1934 by Franz Kurie. Its nucleus contains 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method to date archaeological, geological, and hydrogeological samples.
There are three naturally occurring isotopes of carbon on Earth: 99% of the carbon is carbon-12, 1% is carbon-13, and carbon-14 occurs in trace amounts, e.g. making up as much as 1 part per trillion (0.0000000001%) of the carbon in the atmosphere. The half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730±40 years. It decays into nitrogen-14 through beta decay. The activity of the modern radiocarbon standard is about 14 disintegrations per minute (dpm) per gram carbon.
The atomic mass of carbon-14 is about 14.003241 amu. The different isotopes of carbon do not differ appreciably in their chemical properties. This is used in chemical research in a technique called carbon labeling: some carbon-12 atoms of a given compound are replaced with carbon-14 atoms (or some carbon-13 atoms) in order to trace them along chemical reactions involving the given compound.
For more information about Carbon-14, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
