Radiocarbon dating pins date for construction of Uyghur complex to the year 777
Tuesday, June 9, 2020 - 06:40
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Dating archeological objects precisely is difficult, even when using techniques such as radiocarbon dating. Using a recently developed method based on the presence of sudden spikes in carbon-14 concentration, scientists at the University of Groningen, together with Russian colleagues, have pinned the date for the construction of an eighth-century complex in southern Siberia to a specific year. This allows archeologists to finally understand the purpose for building the complex—and why it was never used. The results were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on 8 June.