Since the 1960s, scientists have started accounting for the variations by calibrating the clock against the known ages of tree rings. As a rule, carbon dates are younger than calendar dates: a bone carbon-dated to 10,000 years is around 11,000 years old, and 20,000 carbon years roughly equates to 24,000 calendar years.

Is carbon dating accurate to the year?

Advancing technology has allowed radiocarbon dating to become accurate to within just a few decades in many cases. Since fossil fuels are millions of years old, they no longer contain any measurable amount of Carbon-14.

What range does carbon dating give you?

Take the quiz. The carbon-14 method was developed by the American physicist Willard F. Libby about 1946. It has proved to be a versatile technique of dating fossils and archaeological specimens from 500 to 50,000 years old.