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Rant: I trust carbon dating over stratigraphy after comparing both on a site in Arizona
Last summer I volunteered on a dig near Flagstaff where we had two ways to date a pit house: the dirt layers and carbon samples sent to a lab. The layers said the site was occupied around 1100 AD, but the carbon came back at 1250 AD, which is a 150 year gap. I ran both methods side by side on four different features at the site and the carbon dates matched each other every time while the layer reading drifted depending on who was holding the trowel. One of the grad students swore the layer method was more reliable because you can see it in the ground instead of waiting on a lab. I get that carbon dating costs money and takes weeks, but if the soil got mixed by rodents or later digging, the layers lie to your face. So which do you trust more when they disagree, the dirt in front of you or the number from the lab?
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grantl9428d ago
The trowel thing is real though, I've watched two people draw totally different lines on the same wall and both swear theirs was right. If the layers can't even agree with each other in the same trench, why would I trust them over four samples that came back consistent? Feels like people defend dirt because it's free and they can touch it, not because it's actually better.
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