ABSTRACT
In the second decade of the 21st century, radiocarbon (14C) dating continues to be the most securely established and widely used scientific method of obtaining chronometric age determinations for terminal Pleistocene and Holocene carbonaceous materials. The types of organics recovered from archaeological and archaeologically related geological or paleontological contexts employed most often as 14C samples are wood, charcoal, marine shell, and bone. This chapter reviews the basic principles underlying the 14C dating method, and examines the nature of and means of resolving 14C dating anomalies. It considers relevant elements involved in the critical application of 14C data as a dating isotope with special emphasis on topics and issues in Old and New World archaeology and, in some cases, late Quaternary paleoanthropology. The chapter also considers the means by which, in some cases, a quantification of the amount of an anomaly can be determined, a correction applied, and valid 14C chronometric age determinations can thereby be calculated.
