Other methods of anthropological dating

Radiocarbon dating may only be used on organic materials.

There are a number of ways to enter into a career in studying radiocarbon dating.

Typically, a Master's Degree in chemistry is required because of the extensive lab work.

Increasingly though, students are learning about the principles of radiocarbon dates in archaeology, palaeontology and climate science degrees and can combine cross-disciplinary studies.

The next big step in the radiocarbon dating method would be Accelerated Mass Spectrometry which was developed in the late 1980s and published its first results in 1994 (3).

This was a giant leap forward in that it offered far more accurate dates for a far smaller sample (9); this made destruction of samples a far less delicate issue to researchers, especially on artefacts such as The Shroud of Turin for which accurate dates were now possible without damaging a significant part of the artefact.

Archaeologists had used Relative Dating methods to calculate their reigns.