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Articles on Radiocarbon dating

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Human remains dating back more than 30,000 years were found at Paviland cave in Gower. Left: Leighton Collins/Shutterstock; right: Ethan Doyle White CC BY-SA 3.0.

Red Lady of Paviland: the story of a 33,000 year-old-skeleton – and the calls for it to return to Wales

It’s been 200 years since the discovery of one of the oldest human burial sites in western Europe on the Gower peninsula in south Wales.
What route did the first settlers to colonize the islands of the Caribbean take? M.M. Swee/Moment via Getty Images

Archaeologists determined the step-by-step path taken by the first people to settle the Caribbean islands

Did people settle these islands by traveling north from South America, or in the other direction? Reanalyzing data from artifacts discovered decades ago provides a definitive answer.
For centuries, indigenous history has been largely told through a European lens. John White, circa 1585-1593, © The Trustees of the British Museum

Archaeologists have a lot of dates wrong for North American indigenous history – but we’re using new techniques to get it right

Modern dating techniques are providing new time frames for indigenous settlements in Northeast North America, free from the Eurocentric bias that previously led to incorrect assumptions.
Lake Taupo, in the North Island of New Zealand, is a globally significant caldera of a supervolcano that formed following a massive eruption more than 20,000 years ago. from www.shutterstock.com

Explosive lies: how volcanoes can lie about their age, and what it means for us

New research shows that carbon dioxide in groundwater can affect the aging of volcanic eruptions. The findings could help predict future eruptions.
In July 2017, new research was published that pushed the opening chapters of Australian history back to 65,000 years ago. Marcella Cheng/The Conversation

Essays On Air: When did Australia’s human history begin?

When did Australia’s human history begin? The Conversation, CC BY16.6 MB (download)
Today's episode of Essays On Air, the audio version of our Friday essay series, seeks to move beyond the view of ancient Australia as a timeless and traditional foundation story.
It turns out that the world is about 4,600,000,000 years old. That’s 4.6 billion years. That’s pretty old! Marcella Cheng/The Conversation

Curious Kids: How do scientists work out how old the Earth is?

The world is made of tiny building blocks called ‘elements’. Scientists have worked out how fast some elements change into other elements. That gives us a very big clue about how old the Earth is.

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