Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-27T03:20:20.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bomb Radiocarbon Dating of Animal Tissues and Hair

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Mebus A Geyh
Mebus A Geyh*
Affiliation:
Joint Geoscientific Research Institute (GGA), PO Box 510153, D-30631 Hannover, Germany. Email: [email protected]
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Initially, radiocarbon dating by bomb 14C was used to check vintages of wine and whisky and to estimate the turnover times of carbon in various biological tissues. However, this technique has never been widely used for routine dating, although it has a wide field of application in geriatric medicine and forensic investigations. Fifteen years' experience in this field has shown the potential and limits of this technique. Taking into account the decisive biological factors, such as growth and aging, a complicated picture is obtained. Recent human bones cannot be dated with a constant precision. Despite an incomplete understanding of the process of incorporation of 14C into human bones, the present dating technique is still more precise than most estimates by geriatric experts, for conventional 14C dating follows that 14C dates of bone collagen represent the years of the termination of puberty rather than those of death.

Another application is the identification of furs of illegally hunted animals on the “Red List of threatened species” of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). For court cases, the year the animals were killed must be precisely determined. Due to the long and variable turnover time of more than one year of leather hair is the best dating material for animals.

Type
I. Our ‘Dry’ Environment: Above Sea Level
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 43 , Issue 2B: Proceedings of the 17th International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 2 of 3), Conference Editors: Israel Carmi, Elisabetta Boaretto , 2001 , pp. 723 - 730
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

Hassan, AA, Termine, JD, Haynes, CV Jr. 1977. Mineralogical studies on bone apatite and their implications for radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon 19(3):364–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillespie, R, Hedges, REM. 1983. Sample chemistry for the Oxford high energy mass spectrometer. Radiocarbon 25(3):771–4.Google Scholar
Levin, I, Kromer, B, Schoch-Fischer, H, Bruns, M, Münnich, M, Berdau, D, Vogel, JC, Münnich, KO. 1985. 25 years of tropospheric 14C observations in Central Europe. Radiocarbon 27(1):1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levin, I, Kromer, B. 1997. Twenty years of atmospheric 14CO2 observations at Schauinsland station, Germany. Radiocarbon 39(2):205–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longin, R. 1971. New method of collagen extraction for radiocarbon dating. Nature 230:241–2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
L'Orange, RL, Zimen, KE. 1968a. Neue Bestimmung der biologischen Halbwertszeit von C-14 in Menschenknochen bei Aufnahme von Kohlenstoff in organisch gebundener Form. In: Strahlenschutzprobleme bei der Freisetzung und Inkorporation Radioaktiver Stoffe (Proc. 4. Jahrestagung Fachverband für Strahlenschutz e.V., Berlin, 28. – 30. 5. 1969):289–297.Google Scholar
L'Orange, RL, Zimen, KE. 1968b. Neue Bestimmung der biologischen Halbwertszeit von C-14. Naturwissen-schaften 55:492.Google Scholar
Lux, B, Rösing, FW. 1996. Der Atombombeneffekt auf Radiokarbon–eine erste objektive Methode zur Schätzung der Liegezeit. 75. DRGM-Jahrestagung, 24–28 September 1996, Zurich [unpublished].Google Scholar
Stenhouse, MJ, Baxter, MS. 1979. The uptake of bomb 14C in humans. In: Berger, R, Suess, HE, editors. Radiocarbon dating. Berkeley: University of California Press. p 324–41.Google Scholar
Taylor, RE. 1982. Problems in the radiocarbon dating of bone. In: Currie, LA, editor. Nuclear and chemical dating techniques. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society. p 453–73.Google Scholar
Taylor, RE, Suchey, JM, Payen, LA, Slota, PJ. 1989. The use of radiocarbon (14C) to identify human skeletal materials of forensic science interest. Journal of Forensic Sciences (JFSCA) 34:1196–1205.Google ScholarPubMed
Wild, EM, Arlamovsky, KA, Golser, R, Kutschera, W, Priller, A, Puchegger, S, Rom, W, Steier, P, Vycudilik, W. 2000. 14C dating with the bomb peak: an application to forensic medicine. Nuclear Instruments and Methods B. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Vienna, 6-10 September 1999. Forthcoming.Google Scholar