I used to trust carbon dating for EVERYTHING, but now I double-check with pottery styles. Our site's history got a LOT more complex.

3 comments

3 Comments

The Shroud of Turin debates show carbon dating isn't perfect. I get why you'd double-check with pottery. It must make your site's timeline way more detailed.

christophermitchell7d ago

Oh man, I was just reading about that. There was this whole thing about how the Shroud might have been in a fire, and the soot and stuff added newer carbon that messed up the dating. It makes carbon dating seem really shaky for some objects. Pottery styles change, but the clay itself doesn't really get contaminated like that. So using both together is smart, it's like backing up your work. I totally get why you'd want that extra check now.

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lisayoung3h ago

Remember that story about the guy who tried to date his old baseball card collection? He used some fancy method that got thrown off by the plastic sleeve. Sometimes the extra stuff on an object tells its own messy story.