Scientists from the Natural History Museum of Utah have taken a deep dive into the not-so-distant past thanks to a friendly tip from Utah's caving community. In a paper published this week by the Journal of Mammalogy, five ...
Ecology
Nov 21, 2023
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New dates provide detailed insights into the timing of events in the ancient city of Gezer, according to a study published November 15, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Lyndelle Webster of the Austrian Academy ...
Archaeology
Nov 15, 2023
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168
According to a new study published in Global Change Biology, the area of northern peatlands has grown in recent centuries. Previously, it was thought that the lateral expansion of peatlands in Fennoscandia has halted or significantly ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 9, 2023
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3D scanners, 3D printers and even new smartphone technology is being used by University of Aberdeen archaeologists to enhance teaching and public engagement of the discipline.
Archaeology
Nov 3, 2023
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6
Human populations in Neolithic Europe fluctuated with changing climates, according to a study published October 25, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ralph Großmann of Kiel University, Germany and colleagues.
Archaeology
Oct 25, 2023
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81
The dry, wind-swept summits of volcanoes in the Puna de Atacama of Chile and Argentina are the closest thing on Earth to the surface of Mars due to their thin atmosphere and freezing temperatures. At their extreme elevations ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 23, 2023
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56
In the karstic caves of Puerto Rico, cave art paints the rock walls. Previous research has assigned ages to this art based on the ages of nearby archaeological artifacts within the caves, but these ages are relative and may ...
Archaeology
Oct 17, 2023
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347
An international team of scientists has discovered a huge spike in radiocarbon levels 14,300 years ago by analyzing ancient tree-rings found in the French Alps.
Astronomy
Oct 9, 2023
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401
When and how humans first settled in the Americas is a subject of considerable controversy. In the 20th century, archaeologists believed that humans reached the North American interior no earlier than around 14,000 years ...
Archaeology
Oct 8, 2023
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229
About 7,000 years ago, a small group of people sat around a fire, next to a small lake in what is now the Nefud Desert of northern Saudi Arabia.
Archaeology
Oct 7, 2023
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173
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.
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