Question

While you and your classmate are studying for your biological anthropology midterm, your classmate tells you that the bones of Lucy, a famous australopithecine specimen that dates to about 3.2 million years ago, were dated based on carbon-14 analysis. Why is this incorrect? Group of answer choices Carbon-14 analysis only works for materials under 100 years old.

Answer 1

Answer is incorrect as 14C dating only works for materials upto 60,000 years old

Step-by-step explanation:

Carbon 14C dating is a type of radioactive measurement that can be used to determine the age of samples of up to 60,000 years. The sample in the question is 3.2millon years in age.

Although we do not know if the age of the specie is correct, we do know that the age was not determined using 14C dating as the age is more than the range at which 14C is useful I.e within 60,000.