How to Use radiocarbon dating in a Sentence

radiocarbon dating

noun
  • The tusk is in fine shape and radiocarbon dated to the Last Glacial Maximum.
    Author: Ned Rozell, Alaska Dispatch News, 2 Sep. 2017
  • The oldest of these canals, based on radiocarbon dating of remnants of plants, is thought to have been built about 3,500 years ago.
    Ian James, AZCentral.com, 8 Sep. 2021
  • Questions persisted over the dating of the items until the first radiocarbon dating tests in the 1970s.
    Patrick Smith, NBC News, 29 Sep. 2023
  • By radiocarbon dating ancient grass seeds that were found above and below the layers of earth where the footprints were found.
    Los Angeles Times, 30 Sep. 2021
  • And, based on radiocarbon dating, it would have all been transcribed in the fifth or sixth century.
    Joshua Hawkins, BGR, 22 Oct. 2022
  • The next step for the team will be to do more radiocarbon dating and go back out on the field, before analyzing their data.
    CNN, 16 Jan. 2022
  • Using radiocarbon dating, the team first established that the jaw was about 50 years too old to belong to the warrior-king.
    Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 26 June 2019
  • The team performed new radiocarbon dating using conifer pollen taken from the same layers as the grass seeds.
    Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 5 Oct. 2023
  • Based on radiocarbon dating, they’re believed to be more than 1,000 years old.
    al, 4 May 2022
  • One of the first orders of business will be radiocarbon dating the remains for a precise estimate of the bears' ages.
    Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 14 Sep. 2020
  • The technique has been compared to radiocarbon dating but with light.
    Washington Post, 17 May 2021
  • To date the remains this go-round, researchers still used radiocarbon dating.
    Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 4 Sep. 2017
  • This isn’t the first time scientists have turned to radiocarbon dating in an attempt to thwart forgers.
    Meilan Solly, Smithsonian, 7 June 2019
  • But in 2017, the team ran samples and came back with radiocarbon dates from the ninth century b.c., moving the tower’s provenance by more than a thousand years.
    Rachel Poser, Harper's magazine, 19 Aug. 2019
  • The pitch was radiocarbon dated to around 5,700 years ago, the advent of the Neolithic period in Denmark.
    Kristin Romey, National Geographic, 17 Dec. 2019
  • Based on radiocarbon dating, Aguada Fenix is around the same age as several large Olmec sites.
    Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 3 June 2020
  • Nielsen and researchers used radiocarbon dating of eye lens nuclei to estimate the age of the sharks and published their findings in the journal Science.
    Nayeli Lomeli, USA TODAY, 4 Apr. 2020
  • Using radiocarbon dating, Nielsen's team peered into sharks' eyes to find their age.
    William Herkewitz, Popular Mechanics, 11 Aug. 2016
  • Because mud wasps have inhabited the cave for tens of thousands of years, the team was able to use radiocarbon dating to determine the age of 27 nests found beneath and atop 16 of the paintings.
    Livia Gershon, Smithsonian Magazine, 23 Feb. 2021
  • Schroeder and his colleagues got permission to sequence DNA from the tooth, which radiocarbon dating showed was more than 1,000 years old.
    Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, 19 Feb. 2018
  • Per Live Science, radiocarbon dating suggests the bones in the walls belonged to people who died during the second half of the 15th century.
    Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Feb. 2020
  • Researchers plan to use radiocarbon dating to determine the grave’s age.
    Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 June 2023
  • But radiocarbon dating, which showed Stonehenge to predate the Mycenaeans, had consigned that theory to the scrap heap.
    Simon Akam, The New Yorker, 15 Feb. 2022
  • Confirmation of the age of these remains came through radiocarbon dating of a few samples.
    Megan Gannon, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 Feb. 2022
  • Based on radiocarbon dating and an analysis of when this spot became submerged, the researchers think the artifacts are at least 7,000 years old.
    Megan Gannon, Smithsonian Magazine, 1 July 2020
  • Condron and Hill used seafloor mapping, radiocarbon dating, and a new iceberg model to analyze 700 iceberg plow marks on the seafloor to track the movements.
    Garfield Hylton, orlandosentinel.com, 30 June 2021
  • According to radiocarbon dating, all three had lived about 4,000 years ago.
    Matt Hrodey, Discover Magazine, 30 May 2023
  • Using radiocarbon dating, the team tested wood preserved in the road, and were able to date the thoroughfare and connected settlement to 4,900 BC.
    Tim Newcomb, Popular Mechanics, 11 May 2023
  • But radiocarbon dating suggested that the layer was only 2,900 years old.
    Zach St. George, New York Times, 5 Mar. 2024
  • Plus, radiocarbon dating isn’t particularly precise for things less than 300 years old.
    Lauren Leffer, Popular Science, 3 Apr. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'radiocarbon dating.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: