Practice question · Multiple choice
Radiocarbon dates a bone to 3,000 BP ± 40 years; dendrochronology can give an exact calendar year. Why is the tree-ring date stronger evidence even when the two agree?
Hints
- Ask which method needs the other one in order to be corrected.
- What assumption does a decay-rate date carry that a ring count does not?
Show the answer
A. Because ring counting is measured and radiocarbon is modelled
Why
One counts years; the other converts a measured ratio through a calibration curve. That is exactly why radiocarbon must be calibrated against tree rings and not the reverse.
Practise Absolute Dating Techniques
The app has 6 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. History I is free to start.
More questions on Absolute Dating Techniques
- Radiocarbon dates a piece of wood, and archaeologists warn about the 'old wood problem'. What is being dated…
- Radiocarbon cannot date dinosaur fossils. What limits it?
- Match each dating method to its essential limitation.
- Willard Libby demonstrated radiocarbon dating, revolutionizing prehistory overnight, in which year? Set the…