Radiocarbon dating, also known as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating, is a scientific method used to determine the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. Radiocarbon dating was developed in the late 1940s at the University of Chicago by Willard Libby, who later received the Nobel Prize for his work. The method is based on the fact that living organisms absorb carbon-14 into their tissue, and when they die, the carbon-14 starts to change into other atoms over time. Scientists can estimate how long the organism has been dead by counting the remaining carbon-14 atoms.

Radiocarbon dating is used in a variety of fields, including archaeology, geology, sedimentology, and lake studies. It can be used to date minute samples using AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry), which has allowed palaeobotanists and palaeoclimatologists to use radiocarbon dating directly on pollen purified from sediment sequences, or on small quantities of plant material or charcoal. Radiocarbon is also used to date carbon released from ecosystems, particularly to monitor the release of old carbon that was previously stored in soils as a result of human disturbance or climate change.

A key concept in interpreting radiocarbon dates is archaeological association, which refers to the true relationship between two or more objects at an archaeological site. It frequently happens that a sample for radiocarbon dating can be taken directly from the object of interest, but there are also many cases where this is not possible. Reproducibility and minimum reporting standards are discussed along with potential issues related to accuracy and sensitivity.

In summary, radiocarbon dating is a scientific method used to determine the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. It has been used in a variety of fields, including archaeology, geology, and lake studies, and has allowed scientists to estimate the age of organic materials as old as approximately 60,000 years.