Dating bones/objects such as carbon dating.?

Question

Ive heard that there are many other ways of dating very old objects. What are they?

Answer 1

You can use the radioactive decay in rocks surrounding the sample to date it.  The principle is the same; see how much parent radioactive material is there, see how much daughter decay product is there, and the ratio tells you how long the rock has existed in that form.

Answer 2

Stable atoms, such as Carbon-14 start to decay the moment that a living organism dies. The ratio of decay determins the relative time that that decay started to take place. From this can be calulated the time of death of the organism. The longer the period the more acurate the judgment of the time of death. The nearer the present the less acurate the judgment.  In dendro-chronology (trees), you can date the time when the tree stopped living, its age and the month the tree died.

A more acurate isotope is Oxygen-16, but this can only be used to date certain instances.

I hope that helps..Kind regrads

Dr Antony